You’re welcome 🫡

The “guy” would be Shein.

Another neat way to frame the debate, to reach for the obvious example, is over swastikas. Of course, having a picture of a swastika tattooed on your arm isn’t harming anyone, so why should we as a society have any distaste for it?

To answer “we shouldn’t” is to cede ground to nazis. We do not, actually, have to tolerate their symbols.

The 4chan-nazi pipeline—yes, I’m still talking about pedophiles—if you’re not aware, is a strategy by which people are drenched in ironic, nazi iconography, which results in them being more permissive of that kind of thing, and thus makes them much, much easier to be groomed by king-master klansman, or whatever they call themselves.

Being too permissive of something is socially harmful.

I agree, pedophiles are often villainized way too much. I would like them not to be so afraid of being found out that they never get therapy. If they’re good people, I assume they want to be better as much as I want them to, even if it’s difficult. None of this means we need to sell dolls to them.

Think about it this way: I watch pornography all the time. I am not any less likely to fuck a woman. How is the doll supposed to satiate them?

I realize that I sound very condescending right now, but I’m sincerely asking: this idea that a legal outlet is actually more helpful to them, where does this come from? Does it even make sense?

Whether you mean to or not, I think that you are ceding ground to people who want pedophilia to be more popular. They do exist: middle America loves child marriage. This is why I’m not engaging with the personal freedom angle; it’s not really relevant.

Also, requiring child dolls to have some dimension by which they are clearly identifiable as adults is an effective ban on child dolls—it’s the same thing.

I think there may be some social issues with a for-profit company being financially incentivized to promote and sell pedophilia to people.

How would you rather deal with this? A boycott? Do you have money in child sex doll manufacturing that you can withhold?

So he can think of it as a child in his head.

That’s not really what this is about. You’re trying to assess this on a personal freedom level when what we’re talking about is a guy with a megaphone.

I live in the US. This American apathy and resentment of political power, this vaguely libertarian vote-with-your-wallet thing, is specifically what I’m criticizing. It’s a kind of political advocacy that abstains from the reigns of power. It’s also, like, a step above changing their profile picture.

I’m aware that everything is broken. But, it was less broken in the past. It’ll be more broken in the future. I look around, though, and I see so little interest in reclaiming the power we’ve lost. Nobody wants to hold the reigns. Zohran does. He’s trying something.

I worry that a lot of Americans, if not most of them, desperately want politics to go back to being something they don’t have to think about; which isn’t good—that’s not a good thing. You don’t win a game of chess by skipping your turn every time it comes up.

Okay, I’m trying not to be needlessly irate because I’m not yelling at you so much as I am lamenting the current state of political advocacy.

My problem is that you are confused. If we have enough people to do this:

If enough people are willing to say “no, I don’t want to see that show enough” then there is the possibility of change.

Then we have enough people to enact regulations. These aren’t different strategies, it’s the same strategy. You need coordinated public willpower either way. You need something tangible to actually direct the currents of the ocean.

People, today, broadly, don’t seem to believe that they can wield the government to their advantage at all. They don’t even see it as an option. They don’t have any ambition.

I’m not saying that you should spend money on a morally bankrupt company. I am saying that this won’t accomplish anything. It isn’t a solution. Certainly not if you don’t believe the regulations option is even possible.

I still have hope, you know. But, it’s dependent on people remembering the union, bar-brawl fistfights their grandpa used to get into.

I’m saying that people like boycotts more than they like actually doing anything. I think it’s a power fantasy, personally.

That said, I don’t expect anything to happen in the next 10 or 15 years given who’s currently in charge, so may as well.

the only way to defeat them is by not giving them money

Is this what it’s like to grow up on tiktok? Nobody has any ambition. It’s all just bootstrapping and personal responsibility.

It’s all arbitrary one way or another,

Exactly, yes.

The choice to fixate on it is arbitrary, though. That the math is easier when C=1 doesn’t really mean that C is 1 any more than it is 299,792,458. C is C. The 1 is convenient.

Ah, so it is arbitrarily human experience that defines these things, I see.

I was going through my saved comments again, and I want you to know that I very much appreciate you for writing this up. :)

There is an element of people wanting their fast food and being displeased that civil rights took multiple decades to build.

That said, it isn’t just their fault. The Democrats, generally, do not know how to be exciting. As much as people say they’re not interested, it’s not entirely true; there is a spark that has yet to be ignited.

I don’t mean to be mean, but you need to talk to more people.

A lot of people in America simply do not believe they can change anything. Either because they don’t know how, they’ve never shown up to a town hall, or because the only politics they hear about are from states and federal buildings they’ll never live or work in, or because the only politics they hear about outside of Trump being a dipshit is some 2% thing that will do something which might lead to something else maybe, or because South Park taught them that caring about anything is cringe and, actually, the smartest people spend all day making fun of anyone with an idea.

I mean, let me ask another question: how the fuck do you lose interest in unions? And yet, the US lost interest a looong time ago.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Because I’m halfway through it right now, and I think it’d be really funny if I started the game “for the first time” only to find that 1. there was already a save, 2. named what I name him, 3. with 12 hearts, and 4. on a Wii used only by me.

I think there does come a point where stupidity and malice are basically the same thing.

I think people just don’t like being told what to do. Like, there are a lot of behaviors you can trace back to someone just being personally aggrieved that they ought to change anything.

That said, if anyone else is reading, the em dash is a clue that you use to diagnose with—you don’t have to stop using it.

Knowing how to be abrasive is a very useful social skill, I think.

I saw a YouTube video from this guy who just liked to yap and tell stories. He was friends with a trans man, though I don’t think he knew at the time. Probably figured it out at some point, but it never changed their relationship. They were just best buds.

Well anyway, this trans man passed away, and the youtuber went to his funeral. The guy’s deadname was all over the memorial display. They’d prettied him up to look more feminine. Even clothed his body in a dress, I think. People gave eulogies about her memory, her significance, her this, her that.

The youtuber (and this was all before he was even on youtube, by the way) finally had his turn to go up and give a eulogy. He went up and said a few words about his friend, and then absolutely laid into these people for their callousness; for barely understanding who this guy, the deceased, even was; for amending his history and mourning only the parts of him they could actually stomach. And then he left. Not much point in staying in the service after that.

Being able to do things like that, though, requires some emotional strength. It’s a skill you have to practice. That youtuber wasn’t the only one there who felt that way, but he was the only one to say anything.

Caves of Qud uses water as currency. I think it explains this by making all of its characters weirdo radiation freakazoids that can teleport and fly around and stuff.

Yeah, they do. You never heard of a crime of opportunity?

Why do you lock your doors at night? You know that anyone who wants to get in can just rake the god damn lock, right? Most people don’t want to get into your house, and the ones who do will be able to enter anyway, so what pathology drives you to waste your time like this?

You are reading waay to much into that title, man. Their claim is it doesn’t make people more misogynistic. There are still tons of reasons to care about how media conducts itself.

Or do you imagine it’s just a neutral thing that the whites-only crowd would make it impossible to be a black actor again?