LukeZaz's recent activity
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz Link ParentOh, I get you. I've watched several whole videos on this subject. I agree completely. I suspect you may've misinterpreted my post as suggesting that calling Trump a psychopath was unfair; this...Oh, I get you. I've watched several whole videos on this subject. I agree completely.
I suspect you may've misinterpreted my post as suggesting that calling Trump a psychopath was unfair; this wasn't what I meant and it's on me for not being clearer, as several others misinterpreted the same way.
I was just trying to say that it's bad habit to retroactively assign negative behaviors to people one dislikes upon learning about them, because other people aren't Trump, and you can end up with hate that has no good reason to exist.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz Link ParentHey, I'm not really disagreeing. Trump's awful, and I could definitely see him sharing traits with a psychopath. I've just seen it happen before that folks will hear explanations for why people do...Hey, I'm not really disagreeing. Trump's awful, and I could definitely see him sharing traits with a psychopath.
I've just seen it happen before that folks will hear explanations for why people do bad things, and then retroactively apply it to those they don't like. For the specific case of Trump, it's no big deal because he is, as I said, a fascist. He's obviously terrible. I just don't want folks getting into the habit of this thinking, because it can lead to illogical hatred of other people who haven't earned it.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz Link ParentYeah, I've got no argument against calling specifically Trump out for psychopathic behavior. That's absolutely fair. I just want to caution people against doing on a more general basis. And yeah,...Yeah, I've got no argument against calling specifically Trump out for psychopathic behavior. That's absolutely fair. I just want to caution people against doing on a more general basis.
And yeah, I would agree that it is pretty normal for people to do this. I just think it's a bit unsafe, you know? Since people have that whole negative perception thing I mentioned in my big comment elsewhere, I feel that it runs a risk of being a way for folks to create a false post-hoc justification for pre-existing hatred; not really a problem for someone like Trump who is undeniably terrible, more a possible problem for when that hatred might not be so fair.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz Link ParentCalling Trump a psychopath isn't an impulsive thing itself at all, no. It's just generally poor form to call anyone you don't like a psychopath right after reading about traits of psychopaths,...Calling Trump a psychopath isn't an impulsive thing itself at all, no. It's just generally poor form to call anyone you don't like a psychopath right after reading about traits of psychopaths, because that usually is an impulse. It's the general idea that I'm concerned with, not who it was about.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz Link ParentThat's a good quote, yeah. Though I'm not sure you and I are on the same wavelength — it sounds like your quote is agreeing with me? In case it wasn't clear, my comment was directed at what...That's a good quote, yeah. Though I'm not sure you and I are on the same wavelength — it sounds like your quote is agreeing with me?
In case it wasn't clear, my comment was directed at what Kerry56 said, not the article itself. I'm pointing out the same impulsive "diagnosing" that the article mentions there.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz (edited )Link ParentYes, and it would be much healthier to reach that conclusion with careful consideration as a matter of curiosity, rather than impulsively, or as an implicit justification for anger.Yes, and it would be much healthier to reach that conclusion with careful consideration as a matter of curiosity, rather than impulsively, or as an implicit justification for anger.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz LinkI'm way too tired right now to fully dig into this one – though it looks like I could get lost down an interesting rabbithole here – but the phrasing of this title reminded me of a tangential but...I'm way too tired right now to fully dig into this one – though it looks like I could get lost down an interesting rabbithole here – but the phrasing of this title reminded me of a tangential but related concept that I feel might be useful to bring up anyway.
Concepts and disorders like psychopathy and sociopathy (and to a slightly lesser extent schizophrenia) have some incredibly toxic reputations about them. People and pop culture like to think of them extremely negatively. And sometimes that's a bit justified — if something's broken such that you can't understand why hurting someone is bad, yeah, someone being wary around you is understandable.
But that means an important reminder may be useful, so to those who might need it: None of the above conditions make their sufferers automatically evil. Empathy encourages kindness, but it is not a prerequisite, and there are people who have had each of the above conditions and still done good for the world. Do not treat them – any of them, even psychopathy – as though they're somehow the "Bad Evil Person who Deserves to Suffer" disorder. That disorder does not exist. Using any heuristic, test, or other rubric for these conditions to try and justify hating someone is irresponsible and disgusting in every case. Please don't make that mistake.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
LukeZaz (edited )Link ParentI agree that Trump is loathesome, but honestly? I feel like it's a bad impulse to read about psychopathy and then immediately go, "This sure sounds like that one person I hate." Rubs me the wrong...I agree that Trump is loathesome, but honestly? I feel like it's a bad impulse to read about psychopathy and then immediately go, "This sure sounds like that one person I hate." Rubs me the wrong way something fierce, you know?
If it's any consolation, if you want to hate Trump, you've already got plenty of good reasons, because he's a fascist. So no need to apply this to begin with.
EDIT: Lots of folks are misinterpreting me here, and given how many I think it's my bad. So to clarify: I don't take issue with calling Trump a psychopath. I just wanna discourage the general idea of using newly-learned information about a mental disorder as a reason why you were correct to have hated someone. It's an easy mistake to make, but it can just as easily lead to unjustified anger at people who very much aren't like Trump.
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Comment on How Marco Rubio is running Venezuela from afar in ~society
LukeZaz Link ParentBah, sounds like a theater act. But I'm not sure what else to do. Wait. Gulf of Ontario strategy. I'm gonna go to the Wikipedia page and replace a bunch of random words with "America"!Bah, sounds like a theater act. But I'm not sure what else to do.
Wait. Gulf of Ontario strategy. I'm gonna go to the Wikipedia page and replace a bunch of random words with "America"!
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Comment on How Marco Rubio is running Venezuela from afar in ~society
LukeZaz Link ParentYikes, no! That sounds like something British, or – eugh – French... I think I got it though: Subsidiary.Yikes, no! That sounds like something British, or – eugh – French...
I think I got it though: Subsidiary.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz Link ParentIt sounds like you had a pretty visceral reaction to that video, because that's a pretty big misinterpretation. The point that was being made was that any attempt to take a "neutral" or...- Exemplary
Because it left abosolutly no space for any dissent, or any questioning of priorities, methods or anything else. You think that climate change should be given a higher priority? Nope, you are now racist, because you should always actively work against racism!
It sounds like you had a pretty visceral reaction to that video, because that's a pretty big misinterpretation. The point that was being made was that any attempt to take a "neutral" or "uninvolved" stance on racism is to tacitly participate in it, because you're leaving your own biases and privileges unexamined, and that will affect you and those around you. This doesn't mean you have to fight racism every waking second of your life — it just means you have to be cognizant of it and how it works. Or, as the word used to go, you had to be woke.
More generally though, I think you've gotten frustrated because you've found friction in discussions without having had the reasoning behind the reticence explained to you. A thorough breakdown would take me far longer to write up than I have the energy for, but I can give some brief reasoning:
- Discussing a dangerous topic without care can easily and accidentally grant it undeserved legitimacy, which is something I've written at length about before
- Some participants in the discussion may not be so genuine as they claim and will deliberately poison the well (or may have started the discussion themselves to utilize the above point)
- Publicity and attention are a kind of power, meaning any bad faith actors openly pushing the topic will benefit from their mere visibility in it. This is one reason why some right-wing talking heads love "debating" university students so much
- Discussing difficult topics in a public space means running the risk of pushing away those who've been traumatized by the problem you're discussing — this has happened on Tildes already on more than one occasion, and it has lost us several fantastic users
All of these are good reasons to be hesitant to discuss something. It doesn't become impossible, but the more these reasons apply, the more careful you need to be. I'm sure you can see from this very thread some ways in which a lack of care in framing can cause some serious problems, and this is the milder end; worse options include people being fooled into thinking Gamergate somehow really was about ethics, or the slow development of the metaphorical Nazi bar.
Incidentally, those same reasons are going to be why I'm going to slow down my posting in this thread, by the way. As I stated in various ways both here and earlier, this discussion was started off very poorly, and I think this thread is running a severe risk of rehabilitating the image of a topic that deserves no such thing, so the value of my posting is quickly approaching the point where it is outweighed by the harm of bumping the thread.
Still, I hope you found my comments helpful, and I hope next time you find yourself at odds with someone who doesn't want to talk about something, both you and they will better be able to understand each other.
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Comment on How Marco Rubio is running Venezuela from afar in ~society
LukeZaz Link ParentSo a vassal state then. Exactly the sort of thing I'd trust Donald Trump to do right with!! Fuck, man. I know Venezuela was scarcely trustworthy or stable before this happened, but it's hard for...The U.S. Treasury receives the revenue from most of Venezuela’s exports, then disburses it to Venezuela through the country’s banking system, a relationship akin to parents handing out allowances to children.
So a vassal state then. Exactly the sort of thing I'd trust Donald Trump to do right with!!
Fuck, man. I know Venezuela was scarcely trustworthy or stable before this happened, but it's hard for me to see this as anything other than trading bad for worse. I was expecting U.S. looting, and it looks like that's exactly what's happening.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz Link ParentIf that interests you, I'd much sooner recommend A Case Study in Digital Radicalism by Ian Danskin. It's shorter, for what that's worth, although given the nature of video essay viewership, maybe...I watched the first two hours of this video before having to stop on account of life things, as one does. I will probably finish it, because for some reason the idea of an audiobook-length history of Gamergate appeals to me in the same way as picking at a scab does.
If that interests you, I'd much sooner recommend A Case Study in Digital Radicalism by Ian Danskin. It's shorter, for what that's worth, although given the nature of video essay viewership, maybe that's a negative?
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz Link ParentI'm getting the impression across your comments that you may've come here from a background of someone who's been able to largely ignore Gamergate? Hard to say, but I feel like this video might be...I'm getting the impression across your comments that you may've come here from a background of someone who's been able to largely ignore Gamergate? Hard to say, but I feel like this video might be the first to catch your interest on the topic, and you may've come in here with the accidental assumption that others were likewise and so their confidence is unearned if they haven't watched.
I bring this up to point out that that's an assumption; if you re-read those comments with the lens of "this person is commenting about Gamergate using their knowledge from other videos," they'll probably read better. Most of this thread isn't even directly criticizing the video — it's a big hubbub about Gamergate itself. Which I think is the direct result of the framing issue I mentioned above.
I don't think anyone would've minded talking about the complexities of how a deliberate harassment campaign fooled so many people, had it been that the discussion had occurred with appropriate care. We just didn't get that, and the end result was a video/post that gave a first impression of implying Gamergate wasn't about harassing women. That kinda ambiguity makes people bristle, and reasonably so, given how often the alt-right has used it to smuggle their bigotry.
All that said, if my initial feelings were correct and you'd like to understand more why us folks have bristled some, I can recommend this breakdown gladly; it's self-contained, comes in just under an hour, and if it interests you I also kept in the wider playlist which covers alt-right tactics more generally too. You might notice this is the same author who vord linked, and while the series they linked is also good, I believe the author in question has some regrets about that work by comparison.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz Link ParentThis is meandering pretty far from what I was actually talking about, which I felt was pretty clear. But to spell it out: I meant "media" as in journalists/news outlets, and I meant "trust" as in...This is meandering pretty far from what I was actually talking about, which I felt was pretty clear. But to spell it out: I meant "media" as in journalists/news outlets, and I meant "trust" as in "being able to let your guard down because this person/group has never deliberately lied to you." Nobody can be suspicious forever, unless they want to die from stress.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz Link ParentGamergate was a harassment campaign that used good-sounding concepts to dupe a wider audience into joining in. Any other framing is secondary at best, and should acknowledge that fact first. I...Gamersgate was mostly about audience misalignment.
Gamergate was a harassment campaign that used good-sounding concepts to dupe a wider audience into joining in. Any other framing is secondary at best, and should acknowledge that fact first.
I wish it didn't, but such is the world we live in.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz Link ParentAs mentioned elsewhere in this thread (by the same person you're replying to, even), this is a huge ask to begin with on a six-hour video, let alone when you're talking about someone who considers...You can't debunk something if you don't have a god damn clue what it is even saying!
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread (by the same person you're replying to, even), this is a huge ask to begin with on a six-hour video, let alone when you're talking about someone who considers the video to be likely to be disinformation.
Frankly though, even if the video does agree as you say, there's a framing issue at hand. Trying to talk about ethics in journalism in the context of Gamergate, which was explicitly a harassment campaign that used that very concept to launder itself, is a dangerous thing that has to be done very carefully. You have to make sure it's abundantly clear to everyone in the room that Gamergate was a harassment campaign, because if anyone thinks otherwise, the harassment campaign is duping them successfully. And we've got enough misogyny already.
I'm not sure the video has done that, and OP's post certainly has not. Considering the rampant bigotry, lying, and duplicity involved in Gamergate, that immediately calls good faith into question. That's probably why vord posted what they did — and considering how much people here do not seem to be clear on how Gamergate was a harassment campaign, I think they were very correct to make that post.
As a closing note: vord was debunking a false conception of Gamergate. If the video agrees, then they were not debunking the video.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz (edited )Link ParentOne point I've not seen anyone else make yet: Sounds great as a line, but no. If there's one thing I've learned from alt-right bullshit, it's that grifters will spew bullshit regardless of...One point I've not seen anyone else make yet:
"If you don't allow legitimate criticism from within you encourage illegitimate criticism from outside"
Sounds great as a line, but no. If there's one thing I've learned from alt-right bullshit, it's that grifters will spew bullshit regardless of censorship. Best not give them a platform.
EDIT: I've now realized that if I'm going to make this point, I also need to make it clear given the topic that Gamergate's claims regarding censorship were illegitimate. Posts were taken down because they ranged from useless drama to outright doxxing. Even if the above pithy statement were true, it would not apply here.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
LukeZaz Link ParentThis is a decent point, but it's probably more likely that people don't spend limited energy on videos they have strong reason to believe are bunk.This is a decent point, but it's probably more likely that people don't spend limited energy on videos they have strong reason to believe are bunk.
I was thinking about this article when I was writing that post but couldn't remember where I heard of it!! So happy you posted it, thank you. It was bothering the hell outta me, haha.