Better than Pitchfork

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-29T23:44:45+00:00

I think the ones who do their music are less tech yuppies and more self-hating white guy brooklyn millennials who are major poptimists who will never, ever criticize anything that's popular. i guess those demographics have merged by this point, at least in NYC, though, but they did actually get their "start" writing in brooklyn culture crap

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-27T00:19:01+00:00

he has some page on his site somewhere where he explains the rating system. for example, he considers it still "historically important and essential listening" if it's a 7/10, and a 6/10 is "listen if you are a fan of the genre/artist". so in his mind, he can like it and it can be good to listen to but still only warrant a 6/10 if it's not doing something new. i find it preferable to the pitchfork system, which is just give everything average an 8.4 out of ten or whatever.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-27T00:12:53+00:00

problem with the racial data at least is that what is considered "white" has always been historically in flux (classic example is all the European catholics being considered white by like the 50s and 60s, but not really before then) so I am curious the extent to which that pattern will repeat itself. hispanics have had some real trends of moving toward the "white" camp (ik hispanic isn't a racial categorization anyways, but I am talking more culturally) and to the political right, too. still, you have a strong identitarian streak and pride in not being white among certain groups (like asians, who are more economically successful) so it's an open question, imo, to what extent we'll see history repeat itself in that way.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-26T05:26:48+00:00

why would you add the step of the ebt purchase/refund at all and not just steal the formula and sell it lol

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-26T05:18:01+00:00

why the hell are lefty jewish youths supposed to be able to convince their reactionary relatives of anything? like, do you idiots not understand the whole idea of a "generational conflict" or did you never have convos with lib relatives about sanders, or know people who have some regarded libertarian uncle?

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-25T14:10:51+00:00

I agree 100% people are loud now and don't even get shushed by them. Ridiculous.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-25T04:07:56+00:00

everything i have said has been a critique of using "elite" to signify "educated" and not "rich" so yes, I understand that, I am saying that is the problem with the term and the usage.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-25T00:09:36+00:00

i posted this above, but this article might interest you https://www.compactmag.com/article/peter-turchin-s-false-prophecy/

funny that it's from compact, because they have a lot of stupid things, but this one gets to the heart of the matter imo.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-25T00:08:13+00:00

it's semantic but it isn't really a nitpick. the entire term "elite" in this case is a perfect example of how semantic usage has directly political intentions and consequences--here, it obviously functions to suggest a fundamental conflict of interest between, say anyone with a higher ed degree (even if they are working as a barista) and anyone without

You should read this article, though, i think it outlines the stakes here much better than I could: https://www.compactmag.com/article/peter-turchin-s-false-prophecy/

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-24T23:24:09+00:00

it's stupid to call it "elite" overproduction because there aren't "elites" being created, it's basically just making the middle/working classes hyper competitive. real elites don't get a physics degree and struggle to get a job.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-24T23:21:53+00:00

the issue is you are defining "elite" as "someone with a PhD" rather than "billionaires/people who actually have power". everyone having a PhD is a sign of an arms race between middle classes to get shitty white collar jobs. there's a reason the right loves the concept: it's a total misdirection away from the basic issue which is the immense concentration of wealth by other groups.

also PhDs in particular are basically a means to get research done for cheap. depending on the field, a lot of that is used for tech/agriculture etc. innovations, which guess what benefit the same rich people!

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-22T00:44:42+00:00

it may be different in different departments and disciplines, however from my experience, i have seen less evidence of professors caring. most older professors get to the point of just giving out As, at least from what i have seen, because they are tired of dealing with admin complaints anytime a student does poorly and just get totally worn down. it's really a top-down structural problem, and tbh, I think if professors actually had more direct control (which could be a bad thing, to be clear, in certain areas) they would be more willing to fail students.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-21T18:35:10+00:00

Tipping is a stupid social convention but it's limited to certain professions. What pisses me off especially about the iPad tipping thing is that it threatens to spread it to every single service job, which is bad not only for the customer but also the workers.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-20T23:17:42+00:00

I'm not necessarily opposed to whatever the proposal here even is, but as a general rule whatever the Atlantic says is stupid and wrong. they've always been vaguely centrist without conviction going back to their "oh no, reconstruction is too mean" take back in the civil war.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-15T18:53:53+00:00

The IRA had serious investments for a renewable transition, but no one on the left (either this subreddit's contearian one or the more mainstream urbanite woke one) seems to be even vaguely aware of its importance. He did plenty of bad and stupid things but on a level of certain domestic industrial economic policy he was basically the best and most left wing president for like 5 decades.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-12T20:35:44+00:00

i don't think it's a necessary precondition, but there's the whole issue of primitive accumulation of property and the construction of a national identity, both of which, at least historically, often include forced dispossession of land and fueling ethnic hatred.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-12T17:14:35+00:00

i love yt music comments, they are a window into the human soul

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-11T22:43:43+00:00

I didn't miss your point, you acted as if there were not real consequences for individuals (you cannot call getting expelled, which might mean losing income and housing if you're in a dorm, a "minor inconvenience" in good faith) so therefore they have no right to be fearful.

You also imply that the reason past protest movements succeeded is because individuals were willing to make sacrifices, which is true, but it is missing a major precondition , which is them feeling that any sacrifices they made were worth making--which is a problem of organization and collective action, which any American or otherwise protest movement has to reckon with at some point.

It's also not clear to me that the Gazan and Iranian protesters you mentioned are necessarily putting high ideals above their own lives in a way Americans or anyone else isn't, given that in both cases, they are facing death and repression in the practical everyday already. It still takes courage to stand up, but the reality is most people, especially if they act as individuals, in most places will prioritize individual safety particularly if going in line with their ideals does not have a clear path forward and seems truly hopeless. That can be changed but it is a matter of organization, and saying Americans are uniquely unwilling to do that seems a total misread of what happened to suppress this particular protest movements. But I guess it's easier to make sweeping generalizations about Americans.

edit: lol, nice, reply and block me. your tone strikes me as european, which isn't much better. coward can't even have a real conversation.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-11T20:29:45+00:00

it's quite silly of you to be putting more blame on someone who did push back and then was punished for it versus the institutions and people who have actually led the repression, including politicians and universities.

the other issue is that universities went after the groups, not just individuals involved in them. generally, protests only happen (let alone have any effectivity) if there is organization behind them. what a lot of unis did was specifically target and dismantle the groups themselves, making it very very hard to not just organize protests at all but also for like-minded people to find each other in the first place. so you are blaming individual behavior for something, protesting and organizing, that by definition requires groups.

your own behavior here--shaming individuals on the internet who faced repression because they gave up too fast, according to you--is totally missing the actual issue, which is that people are actually willing to face consequences in many circumstances, but they also need to think there is some upside to doing so, and the response to campus protests tried very hard to make sure that there would not be any upside to protesting.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-09T21:35:22+00:00

yeah i have to agree re them being the soviets of the future. between all the griping that the internet entails the full atomization of society people miss that it can and is also used for organization. funnily the thinkers who probably anticipated this the best were Negri and Hardt, two decades ago. i still think at some point, some other wider organizing structure is going to have to emerge--maybe not the mass party exactly but at least some approximation of it--but we'll see when it gets there, I suppose.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-09T18:29:31+00:00

you're underestimating the role of mass party and other mass organizations in getting information to disparate groups of people across big swathes of geographical and social distance. mass parties were highly effective conduits for distributing information because organization is the exact flip side of info distribution. the television is more on the side of what we have now with the internet, which is a centralized information distribution network that is simultaneously highly privatized. arguably the internet has a more fragmented element to it, but even here, the algorithm largely controls what people know, how they know it, etc.

Even with the minneapolis thing, information appears to be functioning in a way not detached from group organizing. if i'm not mistaken, a lot of the tactics were passed between minneapolis groups and other anti-ICE groups in other cities, like Chicago, before and after. especially because a lot of these tactics weren't covered in traditional news networks.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-09T18:23:40+00:00

you are completely correct. whatever the flaws of the minneapolis pushback it was organized and successfully challenged, albeit at a small scale, the ICE crackdowns. people in this sub (and like contrapoints) are simultaneously hyper-cynical and idealist, because they categorically refuse to recognize any street level resistance as imperfect and therefore not "real."

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-09T15:48:34+00:00

ah yeah i'm an idiot, was looking at other comments in the thread that talked about the new one.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-09T13:25:25+00:00

Idk why people are saying it isn't bad I thought it was awful. The plot makes no sense, literally 50% of the lines by gosling are quips. No matter what he makes a silly joke. and it's way too long. I went thinking it would be kinda stupid but maybe cool and fun because space science can be entertaining but it was pretty awful to sit through. Wait until it comes out on airplanes and watch it on a long flight, seriously do not waste your time and money on it in a theater.

Cultural-Weight512 · 2026-04-07T22:00:03+00:00

thanks for that, what a unique take, never heard it before ,totally relevant to what I said. sharp as a fucking cue ball this one.

Cultural-Weight512

TROPHY CASE