NaraVara's recent activity
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Comment on Antisemitism on campus is 'systemic' and going unaddressed, says new report in ~society
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Comment on Building luxury homes is good for the poor in ~society
NaraVara Link ParentThis is more a result of nuclear families than anything. Housing that passes through generations tends to have multiple families living in it at once, or boarders who cycle through, and cultural...This is more a result of nuclear families than anything. Housing that passes through generations tends to have multiple families living in it at once, or boarders who cycle through, and cultural norms where adult children live with their parents.
The 50s was about when big joint family immigrants moved out of cities and into detached suburban housing and the nuclear family norm took hold.
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Comment on Building luxury homes is good for the poor in ~society
NaraVara Link ParentI think the root of it is that we started treating housing as an investment vehicle and people expected to buy starter houses and trade them up. This created a whole culture around home building...I think the root of it is that we started treating housing as an investment vehicle and people expected to buy starter houses and trade them up. This created a whole culture around home building and home buying that’s based on how it looks in a real estate listing rather than what it’s like to live in it. It’s far overweights aesthetics and amenities that sound nice on paper but add no value for the people living in it while ignoring things like doors that open and shut quietly.
A lot of those quality of life things are things people learn the hard way when they live in the same place a long time. In cultures where this is still common people tend to put money into their houses over time to steadily improve them, build additions as their families grow, renovate rooms as their needs change, etc. They’ve lived there so they’ve developed an understanding of things like where it gets damp, where the sun hits, where it’s hot, etc. There’s a whole class of particular knowledge that people learn and build around that doesn’t happen when people trade up to bigger houses instead as their families grow or their life situation changes.
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Comment on Building luxury homes is good for the poor in ~society
NaraVara Link ParentThis isn’t really true, it depends on what kind of maintenance you want to do. If you have drywall and you need to do serious plumbing or electrical work you just cut into the drywall and patch it...Once we started using wood pulp products maintainability just went down the drain.
This isn’t really true, it depends on what kind of maintenance you want to do. If you have drywall and you need to do serious plumbing or electrical work you just cut into the drywall and patch it or you knock the wall out and then hang another wall up again. If you build everything out of concrete suddenly that job involves heavy equipment.
For a continuously occupied residence with climate control there’s no reason a stick-built building can’t last as long as you want. And it’s much easier to be updated or renovated over time, which is good if you value versatility or flexibility. Plus there’s the fact that you’re like, infinitely less likely to die in a fire in a modern building due to safety standards and modern electrical systems.
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Comment on Building luxury homes is good for the poor in ~society
NaraVara (edited )Link ParentIn the US tenement basically means slums and carries connotations of poorly maintained, dangerous, and fire-prone rat traps. If you literally just mean subdividing units for rent we just call...In the US tenement basically means slums and carries connotations of poorly maintained, dangerous, and fire-prone rat traps.
If you literally just mean subdividing units for rent we just call those apartments, even if they’re studio/efficiencies.
The other relevant format is SRO or “Single Room Occupancy” buildings, which people are most familiar with in the form of college dorms. These are units where people get individual dormitories to sleep in but have shared bathrooms and other common spaces with other residents.
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Comment on As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google’s AI Overviews in ~tech
NaraVara Link ParentGoogle’s your problem. The forums where more representative groups of people are having actual discussions aren’t happening on Reddit. It’s in related substack articles, microblogs sites,...Google’s your problem. The forums where more representative groups of people are having actual discussions aren’t happening on Reddit. It’s in related substack articles, microblogs sites, instagram/threads, and discord groups. Things that Google doesn’t index.
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Comment on Is there a way to filter out everything posted by a user? in ~tildes
NaraVara Link ParentJust remember: proving them wrong will only make them wronger.I wish it was that easy for me. But I do suffer from "someone is wrong on the internet" syndrome.
Just remember: proving them wrong will only make them wronger.
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Comment on Is there a way to filter out everything posted by a user? in ~tildes
NaraVara Link ParentYeah if it’s actual out of line behavior I’d agree it’s a moderation issue. If it’s a purely interpersonal issue where two people just can’t help but keep antagonizing each other maybe there’s a...Yeah if it’s actual out of line behavior I’d agree it’s a moderation issue. If it’s a purely interpersonal issue where two people just can’t help but keep antagonizing each other maybe there’s a case for that, but I think mediated resolution of the conflict would be better.
People keep reaching for “technical” fixes to interpersonal problems and I think that really only ever creates cold atmospheres that drift towards antagonistic forms of engagement.
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Comment on Is there a way to filter out everything posted by a user? in ~tildes
NaraVara Link ParentYeah notably that subgroup might be the only one where I always think twice before clicking into comments because it always seems so “frothy” in there. (And not even in an entertaining “lemme get...Yeah notably that subgroup might be the only one where I always think twice before clicking into comments because it always seems so “frothy” in there. (And not even in an entertaining “lemme get the popcorn” way.)
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Comment on ‘X-Men’: Samara Weaving lands role of Emma Frost in upcoming Marvel Studios picture in ~movies
NaraVara Link ParentBack then I don’t think I’d have seen it, but her physical acting in those Yorgos movies impressed the hell out of me.Back then I don’t think I’d have seen it, but her physical acting in those Yorgos movies impressed the hell out of me.
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Comment on Is there a way to filter out everything posted by a user? in ~tildes
NaraVara Link ParentPresumably it’d be a DM rather than a public call out. A user DMed me here many years ago with basically “what’s the deal man, why are you a dick to me all the time?” And I genuinely didn’t notice...Presumably it’d be a DM rather than a public call out.
A user DMed me here many years ago with basically “what’s the deal man, why are you a dick to me all the time?” And I genuinely didn’t notice I was responding to their comments consistently until they pointed it out.
I think that’s generally healthier than blocklists personally. If the intent is to have a community kind of space having atomized, individualized feeds kind of cuts against that. If someone’s actually being disruptive they should just get a stern talking to.
If it’s topic focused that’s a bit harder and I guess would be handled similar to trigger warnings for sensitive content. Though mostly I’m just kind of like, just gonna scroll on. It’s not like I don’t roll my eyes several times a session on here myself. Thats just living in a society.
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Comment on ‘X-Men’: Samara Weaving lands role of Emma Frost in upcoming Marvel Studios picture in ~movies
NaraVara Link ParentAfter seeing Poor Things and Bogonia I feel like Emma Stone would be a KILLER Mystique. She’s probably too expensive to cast in an X-Men movie though.After seeing Poor Things and Bogonia I feel like Emma Stone would be a KILLER Mystique. She’s probably too expensive to cast in an X-Men movie though.
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Comment on Emily Wilson’s critique of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in ~movies
NaraVara Link Parent“You need to show not tell!” Shows “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE SHOWING!?” I mean coming from the epic tradition Homer DOES spend a lot of time going over how people’s emotional states come...“You need to show not tell!”
Shows
“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE SHOWING!?”
I mean coming from the epic tradition Homer DOES spend a lot of time going over how people’s emotional states come through in their actions. That’s a big part of what makes it so compelling is how loaded every action that drives the plot is strung to an entire rich backstory. But it’s a movie! The only way to do this is to have a narrator talking over the action saying LOOK AT THIS! The whole time.
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Comment on Emily Wilson’s critique of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in ~movies
NaraVara Link ParentIs he not shown to be cunning? Just because a film doesn’t spend a lot of time ruminating about the horrors of war while depicting them on screen does that mean you feel nothing? This, again,...Is he not shown to be cunning?
Just because a film doesn’t spend a lot of time ruminating about the horrors of war while depicting them on screen does that mean you feel nothing? This, again, really just sounds like being mad at a film for not being a book.
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Comment on Emily Wilson’s critique of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in ~movies
NaraVara (edited )Link ParentI mean what is an “Odyssey?” One of the gripes I have about this review, as an amateur student of folklore and mythology myself, is that she seems to be heavily privileging an engagement with the...I mean what is an “Odyssey?” One of the gripes I have about this review, as an amateur student of folklore and mythology myself, is that she seems to be heavily privileging an engagement with the Odyssey as a textual work rather than the more freewheeling and adaptive bardic tradition it actually comes from. What we have today is an artifact of the story as it was told at a specific point in time, which happens to have been frozen in amber because they wrote it down. But the way to engage with mythology has, historically, been to continually riff on the story sometimes in very dramatic ways. Pretending there is a single canonical “Odysseus” and a single canonical “Odyssey” is antithetical to the tradition Homer was coming from.
I gripe about this as a Hindu specifically because Hindu folklore comes from a distant cousin branch of the same Indo-European bardic tradition and, over time, much of our mythology has been sort of canonized based on whatever the most popular mass-market written format of it is, which winds up erasing so many other subcultural takes on the same major story that were transmitted from grandparents to their grandkids. There is a specific “canonized” version of the Ramayana by Valmiki that has a level of deference to it on par with Homer’s of the Illiad and Odyssey, but there are tons and tons and tons of vernacular versions of the story. These existed in parallel, everyone knew the Valmiki story but then their communities also told these other forms of the stories that interpolate tons of things and sometimes even invert who the villains and heroes are. These are all valid and make the core story richer to have this large ancillary body of permutations that can cover it.
People very much want there to be a single “what REALLY happened” canonical take on the story but the entire reason these tales endure is specifically because they DIDN’T do that. They didn’t freeze their perspectives on their own mythic history to a specific point in time. The reason the works are so layered is because they have accreted many stories and themes and topics over time as the culture that tells the stories have accrued more events and experiences into their shared history. Over that long span of time the chain of storytelling manages to keep elucidating and refining themes that resonate across different communities and societies and ways of life. This makes them rich and thematically conflicted and layered in ways that few things can ever be.
By focusing on the specific text as written as the “correct” form of the story she is privileging a method of engaging with the story that is the method she is expert in and attempting to invalidate or write off every other way of interpreting or engaging with it.
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Comment on Emily Wilson’s critique of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in ~movies
NaraVara Link ParentI only kind of skimmed it because I didn’t want spoilers for the movie, but she honestly just seems kind of illiterate about the language of film. Like she says the war crimes and stuff are...I only kind of skimmed it because I didn’t want spoilers for the movie, but she honestly just seems kind of illiterate about the language of film. Like she says the war crimes and stuff are glossed over and it’s mainly centering the experience of Odysseus as he perpetrates them which is. . . You know. . . DUH he’s the protagonist. But also, in the trailer the only thing you hear during the sack of Troy is screaming women. And Agamemnon looks like a fucking demonic monster. Like the visuals are about as unsubtle as can be that this is a terrible thing that’s happening.
This also seems to be in that genre of critique that I absolutely hate which is “why did the creators make the movie/game/book/show they made instead of the one I would have made? What do you mean that just because something isn’t being made for ME specifically doesn’t mean it’s bad!?” The whole tone of this review seems like everything obnoxious about academia wrapped up in a bow. The hyperfixation on ONLY their specific narrow range of expertise with zero intellectual curiosity about anything outside it is just plain snobbery and in-group signaling. The fact that it is just being a snobby hipster is obscured by the fact that it’s aimed at Christopher Nolan, but it doesn’t read like this attitude is going to be turned off if a PhD candidate comes through her department with a different take on things. And the open disdain for making or doing anything that’s accessible to a general audience, or that the broad strokes of the story are being interpreted through a lens to address modern moral conflicts and ideals is the classic case of why the influence of academics in general intellectual commentary and popular culture has waned so significantly. They only care about talking to each other rather than making their fields of study relevant to the outgroup.
I’d hate to think how she would have reviewed The Green Knight movie from 2020 if she was a scholar of that era. “What do you mean Gawain isn’t an exemplar of chivalric conduct? You’ve clearly missed the entire point of the story!” Or what would she have said about Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
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Comment on You can vote on the design of the next Euro banknotes! in ~design
NaraVara LinkWho decided the motif for half of them should be birds and buildings? Birds and glass walls are natural enemies! I think I lean towards the people motif, with proposal E being my preference. But...Who decided the motif for half of them should be birds and buildings? Birds and glass walls are natural enemies!
I think I lean towards the people motif, with proposal E being my preference. But if it must be birds, then J for sure.
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Comment on The scrolly chair in ~tech
NaraVara (edited )Link Parent“Here’s my review of how usable this travel backpack is” (Spends a third of the video talking about how well it fits his thousands of dollars worth of video equipment and lighting.) WOW this is so...“Here’s my review of how usable this travel backpack is”
(Spends a third of the video talking about how well it fits his thousands of dollars worth of video equipment and lighting.)
WOW this is so useful and relatable to me Mr. Video Content Creator Man!
There was an MKBHD review of some iPhone where he points out that he thinks the reason Apple puts so much work behind year-over-year improvements to the camera on the Pro phones is specifically because that encourages YouTubers and TikTokers to rave about them, since it’s the feature set THEY care about most and has a halo effect on how the review the device overall. I think it’s fair to say the ecosystem of everything is being polluted by the incentive structures of one-size-fits-all platforms. All the advice about productivity is about optimizing teaching courses and tracking meetings, the stuff productivity gurus do. All the advice about being productive is about making videos, because the thing the video makers view as productivity is cranking out videos!
I guess it’s not so dissimilar to how Hollywood writes busy professionals. If you’re a “stressed out marketing exec” trope they always have them stressing out over a job for a specific client to get them a really innovative pitch. But if you’re an actual stressed out marketing exec you can probably roll through most pitches in your sleep and you have the actual strategy down to a formula, but what’s actually stressing you out is juggling five-thousand individual tasks and 10 clients with deadlines hitting all at once. For screenwriters they perceive stress as having to crunch super-hard on a single project, so they conceptualize all work-shaped lifestyles to be a form of that.
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Comment on Sweden prides itself on equality, so why is its political gender gap growing – as general election looms, survey shows twice as many men as women support far-right Sverigedemokraterna in ~society
NaraVara Link ParentOnline politics discussion of other countries seem to always adopt these American framework about how wealth inequality, class, and race work regardless of how incongruous those are for the actual...Online politics discussion of other countries seem to always adopt these American framework about how wealth inequality, class, and race work regardless of how incongruous those are for the actual countries being discussed.
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Comment on 8BitDo FlipPad in ~games
She gave her a 0% grade. If you can’t identify the very obvious animus behind doing that I think you’re contorting yourself to excuse bad behavior here.
If similar accounts were written in a report on Islamophobia I have serious doubts people would be making such a point of finding reasons it might be okay actually.