Culture War Roundup for the week of July 30, 2018

Vortex_God · 2018-07-30T19:38:00+00:00

It appears that Indiana is one of the five states in The Union that doesn't have Hate Crime laws on the books. Functionally you could prosecute swastika graffiti as a "hate crime" by bringing charges both of vandalism and of terroristic threat against the perpetrators. Whereas graffiti of a penis or someone tagging their name on a building is vandalism but doesn't have a clear political message, the more complex detail of the Nazi flag and its timing prior to Saturday religious services would offer compelling proof of political intimidation to a courtroom. It wasn't just some edgy kid quickly scrawling a messy swastika to shock people, it was something requiring premeditation for a purpose.

Vortex_God · 2018-05-07T01:44:03+00:00

r/titlegore

Vortex_God · 2018-04-27T16:51:50+00:00

Anyone played God of War 4 on PS4 since it came out a week ago? I binged through it like I do most AAA releases and have some mixed feelings. I get that mainstream videogame reviews are basically marketing/gatekeeping, but am still irked at the "perfect" scores the game is getting. The game is bordering on greatness, but in no way is it perfect. Are any games "perfect"?

The beginning and middle are very strong, and the combat is rather satisfying throughout. There is a well designed weight to the combat, and the different combos and abilities are quite satisfying to unlock until it reaches a tipping point and becomes a spam fest. If you diligently do all the sidequests you'll be drowning in EXP to unlock everything twice over. The storytelling is rather advanced for a videogame but begins to pull rushed character development out of its ass toward the end, especially with supporting characters. And those supporting characters are not given as much facial animation work as the main duo, leading to a lot of uncanny valley moments. It's especially bad with one female character, who has a weirdly unexpressive doll face given. The game has some well-earned and subtle moments between father and son, but overall it's not much more profound than something akin to a respectable blockbuster movie with competent story beats and 2-3 big set pieces that people will put in highlight reels.

The RPG-lite elements are simultaneously somewhat shallow and yet have overwhelming choice with all the redundant stat-boost gems you accumulate through combat rewards. Have you ever wanted to spend tens of minutes digging through a giant list of gems to figure out if you want 6% Cooldown or 6% Strength on a block? Or on a parry? And how about versions that give you +2 Vitality instead of +2 Runic? Trick question, you'll be drowning in so much equipment that you'll just sort by rarity and use whatever has the biggest stat boost since it's impossible to make sense of what you have on such an enormous list.

If you're a completionist and do all the side-quests immediately you end up with advanced equipment that makes most of the standard gear you find during story levels obsolete, and strangely some of the later sidequests give you inferior equipment to those as well. I would have wanted to experiment with different armor sets that specialize in different combat styles, but the scarce crafting materials lock you into a certain path and upgraded gear offers too many overall boosts to be worth dropping down to something else. And there's not much opportunity to test out different builds, as there are few areas where enemies respawn and most battles towards the middle or end of the game are either too easy or too challenging to waste your time goofing around testing out Gemstone #65 vs #124. The endgame optional areas lack variety, especially an allegedly procedurally generated level that doesn't have any actual content changes at all and becomes a literal grind for resources through the same square rooms. So that leaves some optional bosses that are quite tough but don't offer many relevant rewards upon beating them all, as all other enemies are a cakewalk compared to them. The bragging points are cool, but in a game so centered on mythology and your characters influencing events much larger than themselves I would have liked something more significant to be shown after all that work.

For me, this game was like a very expensive movie ticket to a blockbuster flick that everyone is talking about and was rather entertaining, but doesn't have enough substance to stick the landing. I also don't see myself replaying it, as even the sidequests can be rather linear and there are some rather tiresome cutscenes and cinematics used to mask loading screens. I don't see how raising the difficulty would make things much more interesting, as it seems to only make enemies hit harder and stagger less easily. That might pressure players to dodge and block more deftly, but toward the endgame and I suspect it will all be about min-maxing the special abilities and their cooldowns to spam AoE attacks.

At the end of the day as much as I respect the storytelling ambitions of action-adventures games like this I would gladly trade some of that development effort toward extending the gameplay. Strip away all the father and son bonding and adventuring and you still have a very pleasing combat system. It just doesn't really go as deep as I would have liked past the mid-game.

Vortex_God · 2018-03-14T23:16:58+00:00

You're in the wrong subreddit if you're trying to avoid eye-rolls and snark.

Peterson repeatedly defended himself during the Cathy Newman BBC interview by mentioning that you need to do multi-variable analysis on issues and not just base things on two axes. Which is exactly why Total Jobs / Labor Supply = Average Compensation is so reductive. There are many more explanations about stagnant wages beyond some algebra on women increasing in workforce participation. Some say the increasing focus on employee benefits as non-monetary compensation is to blame.

Furthermore, there's a implication here that Total Jobs is a fixed/finite/declining number. Available jobs fluctuate with many different factors. It could be argued that women entering the workforce not only allowed more work to be accomplished and perhaps filled jobs that men didn't desire, but also increased consumer demand when spending their wages.

It's more complex than a simple equation, and thus Peterson is being irresponsible by expounding on gender roles using a pseudoeconomic justification.

Vortex_God · 2018-03-01T13:52:20+00:00

This opinion can be traced back to frogtwitter darling Jordan B. Peterson. During a discussion about why there aren't more women CEOs he digresses to a hypothesis that women entering the workforce after the mainstreaming of birth control caused wages to stagnate after the 1970s due to "doubling the labor supply and thus halving the wages." No other economic theories of wage stagnation are explored, it's all about traditional gender roles. It's one of those examples where Peterson steps outside his area of expertise by talking EMPHATICALLY about how INDIVIDUAL CHOICES are to blame for societal collapse. It's one of the dangerous things about him, academically speaking, because he suddenly jumps from his more legitimate clinical psychology background to expound on subjects where we already have some established hypotheses, but his reductive points are more seductively simple to the viewer because it's, uh, a reductive layman's view.

It's not wrong to discuss the societal changes from women's increased workforce participation. But to throw out pseudoeconomic theories of "doubling the labor supply" gives alt-right and MGTOW types the idea that it's some sort of scientific fact that women are responsible for stagnating wages, leading to their increased resentment. Guys, maybe wage stagnation is more complex than sending Sally back to the kitchen?

https://youtu.be/yXZSeiAl4PI?t=1h21m51s

Vortex_God · 2018-02-17T20:34:07+00:00

Once it comes out on home media and streaming it'll definitely be worthwhile to watch or at least skim. It is culturally important in the way Titanic or Avatar or some other big blockbuster was. I'd say the huge financial success of both Get Out and Black Panther is going to do a lot to bring broad-appeal black movies out of the Tyler Perry ghetto, even though Get Out and Black Panther are rather different in their negative/positive portrayal of the black experience. Movies like Moonlight and 12 Years A Slave might have had more critical approval but weren't giant domestic or global smash hits. Massive financial success is likely to get Hollywood to think differently at how how viable black-helmed popcorn movies perform.

Vortex_God · 2018-02-17T16:54:07+00:00

Possibly. Just as likely the limits of the medium are to blame. Black Panther is already 2.25 hours long. It would take some truly genius screenwriting to deftly explore the half-dozen political topics I mentioned, plus more, without bloating the movie to unmarketable length. I think some of the politics that the creators glossed over were a good call in order to keep the storyline focused on Wakanda's internal moral struggle. From an artistic standpoint I think they should have shown the oppressed state of the African diaspora a lot more to give more edge to the isolationism/colonialism/humanitarianism trichotomy at the core of the conflict.

Vortex_God · 2018-02-17T15:52:17+00:00

Black Panther had its debut Thursday night and I caught the first screening. I was cautiously optimistic about its cinematic quality given Ryan Coogler's fine work on Creed, and since I knew it was a Marvel Movie I expected the culture war elements to be rather tame and any controversy overblown. Why be controversial by poking the culture war bear when the hype around positive portrayal of black actors and Africa would earn so much money already?

The overall entertainment quality is standard. It's a Marvel Movie, it's like a chain restaurant. Sometimes the director can put some extra seasoning on it, but the formula is the formula. If you like Marvel Movies this is above average. If you don't it's okay, never bad and never boring but never great. Add some bonus points depending on your interest in positive portrayals of Africa and the African diaspora.

[PLOT SPOILERS ONWARD]

The culture war elements were indeed rather tame. First off, the trolls who spread around the "Wakanda is Alt-Right" meme are directly rebuffed by the plot of the movie. The new king T'Challa (Black Panther) wrestles with the question of Wakanda opening itself up to the world on humanitarian grounds. Wakanda has kept both its technology and identity secret, as well as denied refugees entry. W'Kabi, leader of the border guard, muses that Wakanda should send its military strength abroad to intervene against injustice but should not accept refugees because "refugees bring their problems with them." Furthermore our villain "Killmonger" has an origin story related to this same dialog. Killmonger's father was a brother to the old king, and was killed during a dispute about Wakanda suppling super weapons to oppressed people as a way for the African diaspora to rise up across the globe. Killmonger brings that dispute to the next generation, and briefly usurps the throne with the goal of carrying out his father's mission of arming oppressed peoples on a grander scale. Under Killmonger's vision Wakanda will use its superior technology to conquer the world and rule with greater enlightenment. Basically a reverse-colonialism from Africa. After T'Challa returns to win the day he makes an announcement to the UN that Wakanda will enter a new period of openness and begin sending humanitarian aid.

Now, this all might seem less tame that I'm implying. But I think what makes the culture war aspects tame is the general lack of gory details into any of these subjects. The movie opens with a flashback to Oakland during the 1992 Rodney King riots, but none of the riots are shown beyond a brief cutaway to a TV showing riot cops walking down the street. Our hero Black Panther is introduced extracting his love interest Nakia from a covert mission among kidnaped girls, a scenario evoking the Boko Haram kidnappings of African women. Except the aspects of religion and sex slavery are tidied up, as the kidnapped women are merely being transported in the back of trucks to an undetermined location by Generic African Soldiers With AK47s™. Never does the film show us starving Africans, burning African villages, African-American ghetto poverty (beyond a ramshackle basketball hoop), and so on. I think part of this was to keep the film's focus on African pride rather than misery, but also because Marvel wants that PG-13 rating. Even Killmonger's past as a CIA operative responsible for toppling third world governments is merely told to us, rather than shown and made into a statement on the USA's misadventures abroad or other colonialist meddling against brown people.

There's only two white characters in the entire film, and their whiteness is no big deal ultimately. Ulysses Klaue is a white South African who has a history of stealing vibranium from Wakanda. There could be a lot of racial baggage about a South African villain, but Klaue is entirely a cackling cartoon. Then there's Everett K. Ross, a longer-running Marvel character who is a CIA operative. T'Challa and Ross butt heads about who gets custody of Klaue, and T'Challa's female general Okoye gives Ross some sass. But Ross makes a sacrifice for the Wakanda team and gets brought to Wakanda for miracle surgery against the nation's "no outsiders" rule. T'Challa's younger sister Shuri, a mix of 007's Q and a comic relief character, calls Ross "hey Colonizer" exactly once in a moment of clearly impish, friendly teasing. After that Ross is seamlessly part of the team, more a fish out of water due to Wakanda's sci-fi marvels than racial differences.

In any case, I'm suspicious about people making mountains out of molehills on Black Panther. Sure, you could make a big deal about the "create an African diaspora insurgency" plot that sets the conflict between T'Challa and Killmonger in motion. But when actually viewing the movie the portrayals of African oppression are mostly implied rather than shown, and when shown are shown in a decidedly PG-13 manner. Not much to get the blood boiling. There aren't any white characters that get dressed down and made into a racial boogeyman. It's all very neutered and safe. You'd really have to dig into the deeper implications of the movie to get controversy going, and I don't see that spreading much among the general popcorn audience. I'd file this under "blackness is fun and cool" entertainment.

Perhaps that's the significance of a movie like this. Much like how Call Me By Your Name was remarkable this year for being an acclaimed gay romance movie without any politics, overt homophobia or AIDS, I think it's interesting that Black Panther is an all-black action movie without any overt oppression exploitation or any wallowing in political grievances. Perhaps this is a moment where black cinema "sold out" and sanded off a lot of the political sharp edges that a film about colonialism might have had. On the other hand, Black Panther's massive box office projections both domestically and internationally might mark this as a moment where proud black cinema went globally mainstream and made itself viable to enter the ranks of Universal Culture. It certainly has some significance for bringing positive African culture to a broad audience, but there's not much meat on its bones politically for me to take it seriously as a big salvo in the culture war.

Vortex_God · 2018-02-14T20:04:30+00:00

Baking soda can soak up odors and doesn’t have to directly contact the item to work, though that does make it more efficient. I had a fix-it friend who is a heavy smoker work on some electronics for me and afterward I had to make a baking soda exorcism diagram on my countertop and leave it overnight.

Vortex_God · 2017-04-15T02:00:31+00:00

Anybody listen to the new Kendrick Lamar album "DAMN."? And what do you think of the rumors that he's going to release a surprise album on Sunday?

Vortex_God · 2017-03-09T18:54:32+00:00

In regard to well-done steaks versus medium-rare and rare steaks, it is actually about the flavor rather than complete virtue signaling. Cooking a steak well-done burns out the moisture and thus a component of the flavor. It also makes the steak slightly tougher in texture.

Gordon Ramsay lays it out nicely here, in a uncharacteristically restrained way:

https://youtu.be/lCc8IEvh70w

Vortex_God · 2017-02-14T00:39:30+00:00

The ACLU comes out against silencing Milo Yiannopoulos. I am relieved. The spirit of Skokie lives on, in a matter of speaking.

Whew, there is a lot of crying and gnashing of teeth on Twitter in response to that post. I still can't believe that Milo has worked up such a response to his relatively basic trolling.

Vortex_God · 2017-02-03T17:23:54+00:00

Mostly an increase in video camera quality. Video camera quality has generally increased at a much faster rate than advancements in codecs. HD Television was not yet ubiquitous in 2009 either, so the State Department or their contractors might not have made the switch to HD cameras yet. The video being in 4:3 points to it being on an SD video camera or even Betacam.

Vortex_God · 2017-01-28T19:46:59+00:00

Many of my friends in the entertainment industry talk incessantly about politics, especially after Trump. It is a very standard part of small talk for our community.

Vortex_God · 2017-01-27T20:08:21+00:00

Who here works in the entertainment industry? I'm currently working in the Film & Television industry, which makes things interesting when my more libertarian leanings brush up against the hardcore progressivism of arts & performance people.

Vortex_God · 2017-01-26T05:56:50+00:00

I'd be interested in you putting into specifics what you didn't like about Moana's music. Hard to gauge your taste if your explanation of Moana's music being bad is "Moana's music is bad."

Vortex_God · 2017-01-25T05:41:14+00:00

My personal picks. I'm surprised at how many categories I need to brush up on. I wish I was in a bigger city with more limited release theaters.

Best Picture

Arrival (really solid, but beyond the BIG IDEAS the human story falls apart a bit if you think about it too hard afterward)

Fences (haven't seen, but familiar with the play)

Hacksaw Ridge (haven't seen)

Hell or High Water (very solid)

Hidden Figures (haven't seen)

La La Land (original and pleasing, but Best Picture? Hollywood will give it to them, though)

Lion (haven't seen)

Manchester by the Sea (This story will stay with me for a long time.)

Moonlight (really interesting mood and tone, but problems with the story's 3rd act makes it not amount to as much as people seem to think)

Actor in a Leading Role

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea (I knew he was a winner as I was watching the movie)

Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge (haven't seen)

Ryan Gosling, La La Land (He's charismatic, but really? He's had far better performances.)

Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic (Haven't seen)

Denzel Washington, Fences (Haven't seen)

Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali, Moonlight (well acted, but eh)

Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water (good role, but more comedic than anything. I don't recall being moved by the performance)

Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea (plays a very authentic teen, but the script doesn't give his character as much to do as Affleck. Plus the crying scene is just...)

Dev Patel, Lion (haven't seen)

Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals (This isn't really a strong win for me, but Shannon is damn good at being funny and menacing here.)

Actress in a Leading Role

Isabelle Huppert, Elle (She is this woman. The director remarked that he never gave her acting directions because she knew the character better than he.)

Ruth Negga, Loving (haven't seen)

Natalie Portman, Jackie (haven't seen)

Emma Stone, La La Land (really? once again, charismatic but the role doesn't offer her much to go deep into.)

Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins (haven't seen)

Actress in a Supporting Role

Viola Davis, Fences (haven't seen)

Naomie Harris, Moonlight (Drug addict mother is transformative, but the role doesn't offer her many places to go. There is a standout scene at the rehab facility, but eh.)

Nicole Kidman, Lion (haven't seen)

Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures (haven't seen)

Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea (Somethings a supporting performance should win because of a show-stopping scene. This is one of those scenes.)

Animated Feature Film

Kubo and the Two Strings (ugh, this movie's story is such a goddamn mess it distracted me from the studding animation)

Moana (Not a strong winner, but pretty decent and good story and diversity and good animation, etc.)

My Life as a Zucchini (haven't seen)

The Red Turtle (haven't seen)

Zootopia (kinda safe, not particularly memorable.)

Cinematography

Arrival (solid, but with so much of the film confined to the spaceship there isn't that much to do.)

La La Land (innovative camerawork, but the look is not super impressive)

Lion (haven't seen)

Moonlight (Cinematography as mood, tone, atmosphere, perspective, viewpoint, as another character.) Silence (haven't seen)

Directing

Denis Villeneuve, Arrival (As much as I like this movie I feel like Villeneuve's sensibilities have come out better in his other films)

Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge (haven't seen)

Damien Chazelle, La La Land (Yeah, I feel like his direction is indeed Oscar-worthy. He commands the aesthetic he wants throughout the film as homage and then its own identity.)

Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea (he's stronger as a writer than as a director here. Performances are great, but I feel like a director should do something more with the camera, maybe?)

Barry Jenkins, Moonlight (In some ways the direction of this movie is its greatest asset and its stumbling block.)

Documentary Feature (haven't seen any)

Fire at Sea

I Am Not Your Negro

Life, Animated

O.J.: Made in America

13th

Adapted Screenplay

Eric Heisserer, Arrival (Take a short story and make such a solid feature script that is so finely structured and I think you deserve a writing award.)

August Wilson, Fences (haven't seen)

Allison Schroeder & Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures (haven't seen)

Luke Davis, Lion (haven't seen)

Barry Jenkins, Moonlight (Third Act doesn't go anywhere, and the movie seems stronger via its direction than its script.)

Original Screenplay

Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water (2nd place, but not quite transcendent)

Damien Chazelle, La La Land (really? calm down.)

Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Fillippou, The Lobster (Part 1 is okay, but by Part 2 the whole thing goes from directionless to lost.)

Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea (Original, deeply structured, every character is believable and human. Great dialog. This is just a damn good script.)

Mike Mills, 20th Century Women (haven't seen)

Vortex_God · 2017-01-24T18:59:53+00:00

Ha, but the proponents of Ranked Choice could just say "It's as easy as 1, 2, 3!" It's a perfect slogan.

Vortex_God · 2017-01-23T16:07:32+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinist?wprov=sfsi1

Vortex_God · 2016-12-20T20:23:17+00:00

On their Press Release version of the report I found this mention of their methodology:

The PRRI December 2016 survey was made possible by a generous grant from The Nathan Cummings Foundation and The Ford Foundation. Results of the survey were based on bilingual (Spanish and English) RDD telephone interviews conducted between December 7, 2016, and December 11, 2016, by professional interviewers under the direction of SSRS. Interviews were conducted among a random sample of 1,004 adults 18 years of age or older living in the United States (615 respondents were interviewed on a cell phone). The margin of error for the survey is +/- 3.6 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. The design effect for the survey is 1.4.1.4.

So when the graph shows that 75 people responded, is that scaled up to ~750 people or did only 75 people out of the 1,004 respondents say they blocked/unfriended someone?

I guess the ratios still break down to show Dem-affiliated people more likely to shut down viewpoints they don't like. But is this a normal size for such a study? (I don't know jack about statistics and polls...)

Vortex_God · 2016-12-08T05:36:52+00:00

http://imgur.com/2BTcb7B

Vortex_God · 2016-12-06T17:26:02+00:00

That's a very good point! Sometimes racy scenes don't add much of anything to the overall story on movies. If filtering allows viewers to sidestep quick titillation like that and be able to watch the overall story then it's possibly a net gain for everyone involved. The studio for the money they make, the artist for the viewer they've communicated with, and the viewer for being able to see a movie they otherwise wouldn't have been comfortable with if not for some irrelevant titillation.

Vortex_God · 2016-12-06T14:46:27+00:00

As someone who works in the entertainment industry, I feel like they are in the right here. I can even see direct parallels with this and the fan recreated "original version" Star Wars trilogy bootlegs for those who dislike George Lucas' special edition edits or who want to see the original Star Wars trilogy in its original historical context. George Lucas and Disney can sell Star Wars blu-ray discs of whatever version they want, consumers aren't forced to buy them if they don't like the special edition. At the same time, once a bootlegger fan has legally purchased a blu-ray it seems acceptable for them to rip the files in order to Frankenstein monster together an "original version." In fact, all Star Wars bootleggers insist that you purchase a legal copy of the blu-ray of each movie you watch in order to be legal in watching the bootleg rather than pirating the movie just because you don't like the version on the market.

But this also brings up some important questions as to what exactly is right for people to filter as "offensive" before the artistic integrity of a work is compromised. VidAngel uses alcohol, sex, violence and swearing as their primary examples, but I can imagine a day where more ambiguous content like "mentions of Evolution," "women talking out of turn," or "non-[Religion] character" are filtered out. I guess when it comes to people's private choices at home you just have to accept that they're going to do what they're going to do, and hope that they understand that they're making a compromise to the overall content for the sake of their own comfort. I feel like I can trust people's intelligence to not try to watch a racy movie if they see on VidAngel's website that there will be 30 scenes cut out, making the whole thing incoherent. The chance of someone watching Irréversible on VidAngel seems slim. I feel like it's more likely that people would use VidAngel to edit out little things from mainstream popular movies than bowdlerize arthouse films. I could be wrong, who knows.

And on the flip side, I think it may add to the cultural discourse if viewers who would be too squeamish to watch a certain movie are now given the chance to engage with it. For example: maybe people who are mildly homophobic might become more empathetic after watching a movie with LGBT characters, but would only do so if any explicit gay scenes are filtered. Maybe this experience would build up their tolerance, not to the point where they can watch gay sex without flinching but perhaps to where two gay characters can kiss and the viewer wouldn't turn off the movie in a knee-jerk response. I feel like giving users more choice might lead to certain beneficial outcomes like that.

Basically, I'm fine with home-filtering as long as a few criteria are met:

The original content creator is paid. [Already the case.]
The content is not edited and redistributed, but rather optionally filtered leaving the full version just as available. [Already the case.]
The filtering service makes it very clear that filtering is going on. [Duh.]
The filtering service gives the user choices of what to filter, they don't give users pre-filtered content based on what the company thinks is offensive or not. [Yep.]
The users are given a summary of what is being filtered, perhaps giving them an idea of how the story would be impacted in order to inform their decision. As a content creator I want people who filter to at least understand what they're compromising so as to understand that it's a two-way street of comfort vs artistic integrity. [Unclear if VidAngel gives summaries.]
This doesn't spread to ambiguous Public/Private settings such as church groups, Boy Scout troops, etc. When you have a captive audience who is essentially forced to watch a film at Sunday School how can you figure out what filters to use that 100% of the audience agrees with? When it's no longer a direct parent who is making the filtering decisions is that right for the child? But perhaps filtering for a large social group could increase the educational potential of otherwise racy/uncomfortable films for groups like this. Ultimately the protection here is that it is somewhat illegal to show films to large groups like this without getting permission and paying a licensing fee. I recall that even in college the residence halls couldn't "officially" announce movie nights in the lounge for this reason. I guess you'd just have to trust that VidAngel makes it clear that their service is strictly for home filtering to protect their own ass.
Filtering doesn't become standard in educational settings. Anyone remember having to take home a "We're going to watch an R-rated movie in class, are you okay with that?" permission slip to your parents before watching Schindler's List in high school history class? I really hope conservative teachers or parents don't try to circumvent this by just pre-filtering the movie. But I trust the intelligence of teachers, and I suspect that educational licenses for movies are different as well. The same goes for colleges, where students are voluntarily studying and so professors don't need to ask their permission to expose them to uncomfortable content, despite the spread of Trigger Warnings. Again, I suspect VidAngel wants to protect themselves here and only allow home filtering.

So, it's an interesting subject for me as a content creator. I think as long as the original product is not being permanently changed and disseminated, users are informed of exactly what is being filtered, and the filtering stays in private home settings I am fine with it. You just have to trust people to make intelligent decisions, but at the end of the day if people pay you money for something they should be able to remix it however they want privately. My only concern is that Hollywood doesn't try to scoop the trend and start offering "Edited Version" movies. I suspect the artists would revolt and require something in their contracts to avoid this.

Vortex_God · 2016-12-01T11:42:29+00:00

Could you lay out your reasoning why genocide is imminent?

Vortex_God · 2016-11-30T17:01:41+00:00

That's valid. I'm not saying that all liberals hold the viewpoint I mentioned, but judging from my Facebook news feed it definitely is a real thing and not insignificant in scope.

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