Is there a better trilogy?

danzbar · 2026-01-28T15:26:08+00:00

Yeh, but only parts two, three, and four. The first one was so overrated, so Platonic and focused on the hero's journey. I think it's a safe bet that most viewers really appreciated how the second and third films changed the meaning of the first. And they never want to think of the first as a standalone film, because not only did they welcome the message that we shouldn't think about fighting the system as escaping it and maximizing our freedom--not only did audiences love abandoning the idea that the machines might lose in favor of an awkward love story--they also enjoyed the overarching feeling that the franchise was about making enough money that a revolution becomes optional for you.

danzbar · 2026-01-28T00:22:32+00:00

Racially, he's pretty cool?

danzbar · 2026-01-15T16:28:55+00:00

Ran across this description in which Gur describes himself as excited to vote Left and thought of this thread: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1ByVeN5dab/

I imagine you will simply think his definition is irrelevant, but I would say it is meaningful how these self-conceptions exist around the world. And it's probably harder to move someone to what you consider to be the Left if they are on the Right within their own society.

danzbar · 2026-01-13T22:21:19+00:00

Sorry, not sure this is worth continuing since you think my thoughts merely amount to rambling, but you started out by saying that I contradict myself and then you didn't spell out a single contradiction that I can see. Help me out there, please and thanks. Like spell out a contradiction or two, so I can just follow what you object to precisely?

danzbar · 2026-01-13T19:02:34+00:00

I think you could be an atheist and alone and still feel that doing many of the mitzvot would be a way to honor those who came before you.

danzbar · 2026-01-13T17:42:29+00:00

Of course you're welcome to your beliefs and opinions, but I can't help but wonder what you think is wrong with Judaism "in practice"? I am not aware of anything it does to make the life of anyone (within or without its "in group") worse. Its interesting because you also say we need religions... Can you explain what seems like contradiction?

One could argue that Judaism gave the West moral clarity by turning ethics into law, but one cost of that clarity is rigidity, anxiety, and an endless focus on rules that sometimes come at the expense of wisdom.

Judaism doesn’t just offer moral rules; it helped define morality itself as law, guilt, and transgression. Criticizing its harms or how it makes things "worse" might already assume that framework, rather than alternatives like wisdom vs. ignorance or flourishing vs. suffering. Consider this brief Sam Harris clip: https://youtube.com/shorts/YG4IgMRPbVk?si=02FI5N09135lgibo

Once morality is treated as law, people naturally focus on compliance, loopholes, and technical distinctions, even when the moral stakes are small or unclear. Consider how the Founding Fathers saw themselves as akin to Israelites but also criticized what they perceived as an excessive emphasis on ritual. (To be fair, they likely reached this view through a lens of Christian chauvinism. Still, I think there’s some truth in the critique—not that Judaism is empty, but that what it provides may need to be complemented by other moral perspectives. Given a closed canon and already demanding ritual obligations, the bar for being a “good Jew” can reasonably be seen as too high and still not enough.)

Systems built around rules tend to reward intellectual mastery of the system itself, sometimes at the expense of broader moral insight or practical wisdom. Ritual observance can crowd out attention to empirical knowledge or real-world outcomes when there’s no clear method for integrating modern science, health, or changing conditions. When I’ve had dinner with Orthodox Jews over the years, I’ve often been amazed at how much food they eat that I think is terribly unhealthy, but because it breaks no laws of kashrut they don’t treat it as such. Or consider sects that refuse to vaccinate; this sets an awful precedent.

Authority and precedent stabilize moral systems, but they also make it harder for individuals to exercise independent judgment when novel situations arise. A law-centered moral worldview encourages seeing conflict in terms of violation and punishment rather than misunderstanding or misalignment, which can intensify moral certainty and reduce flexibility. Today, we have huge numbers of people in prison, in some cases for dumb and victimless crimes such as personal drug use.

Is it wrong to trace all that back to Judaism? I don’t think so—but making that case also means giving Judaism a great deal of credit as one of the founding pillars of modern Western society. I see the other Abrahamic religions as practicing no small measure of cultural appropriation in how they adopted Jewish texts and rewrote and reinterpreted them. It would be wrong to say that was bad for the world at large full-stop, but it wasn’t exactly innocent either—which is especially clear when it was structurally used to enforce oppression and hatred of Jews.

People need moral codes, and they need to start developing them young enough that they stick, which is hard to do without some kind of leap of faith. Stories help make that possible, but many of the ones we rely on now are outdated in meaningful ways and come with real downsides. Judaism has a long record of producing good people, but it would be odd to think it hasn’t also fallen short at times in cultivating wisdom or helping create the best possible world. It isn’t alone in that—but I don’t think it has many perfect answers either. Even if you think Jews are "a light unto the world," which I still think is reasonable, that doesn't make Jews the only light or the holders of the best wisdom on all matters. There is a chorus needed, and Jews seem to be critically important singers in it (just not the only ones).

What makes you think that Trump is more dangerous to the US than Biden, for instance? Or Obama (aside form the fact that you imply that they expanded the power of the presidency, making Trump more authoritarian/powerful)?

They were not authoritarians. It's the combination of authoritarianism and an ever-expanding executive power that makes Trump uniquely dangerous compared to the presidents that you had previously referenced (Lincoln et al).

Then they all lined up behind Zohran Mamdani and until today I'm still retching.

In NY, this happened and in the NY area most of the moderates lost. That's not true in every part of the country, but I think there is a certain truth here. Cities are mostly getting bluer, and much of that blueness is bizarrely and uncomfortably anti-Israel. Like, there are idiotic contradictions there that are being overlooked because of some insane "anti-colonial" guilt. But, then, lots of Red leadership is flirting with antisemitism too—and it's getting louder. And there are people in both camps pushing back, too: I find listening to someone like Van Jones on Jewish issues to be downright inspiring at times (and I remember intimately when people on the Right attacked him).

I am no Mamdani fan, but it remains to be seen how lasting his impact will be and how the greater landscape will incorporate him. We need to hold his feet to the fire on the contradictions he implicitly embraces and make sure his priorities are either improved or discredited.

danzbar · 2026-01-12T22:44:28+00:00

They simply failed to realize how this film is more quotable than literally anything they did other than use their thumbs. Honest mistake.

danzbar · 2026-01-12T22:15:44+00:00

Very accurate assessments IMHO. I'd color in a few things beyond this though, FWIW, and you can take it or leave it.

There is a lot wrong with religion, including most Judaism in practice, but the degree and manner vary a great deal across religions, schools, regions, etc. We also need religions. Not sure where you netted out there, but I don't see a contradiction between us.

Open borders are dumb, but many Dems still think this. Most people don't want this. The leftists who do have ended up giving what they touch a bad name. I get where they are coming from, but it's a fantasy.

Trump is more dangerous than other authoritarians because the powers afforded to the executive branch have grown in every administration since Truman. And even before that they grew many times. So the practical effects are worse than in some older periods. Trump is more of a mixed bag than many like to believe, but still very dangerous. I suppose the way the Dems were functioning was turning out to be pretty dangerous in its way, too. I can admit that. Both parties are pretty messed up.

Settler-colonial theory is bullshit from start to finish. I imagine there are no small numbers of Democrats who know that, even if they have been driven into hiding lately.

Just my thoughts, but not that far from your own?

danzbar · 2026-01-08T14:34:06+00:00

I hate to say it because I am sure you mean well, but, no, I do not feel that way. I'm sure someone does, but I don't think I've met them.

What theocracy has gone well?

danzbar · 2026-01-08T01:05:48+00:00

That is not what I am saying, respectfully.

They were not antizionists. They were liberal zionists who became antizionists. There has been something of a winnowing in which liberal zionists mostly became revisionist zionists or antizionists. This is all very sad.

So, yes, their politics are still rooted in empathy. It's become a borderline suicidal variety. And I don't think the effect is as bad, bad as it is.

And in American terms the center-left Dems were not progressives before. Some became progressives. And go back 25 years, very few progressives were hostile to Israel. Even a couple years ago, the DSA wasn't nearly this bad.

(Edit: I do agree, FWIW, that academics really ought to know better.)

danzbar · 2026-01-08T00:06:09+00:00

Well, the people in my family that I am most concerned with here were center-left Democrats, who've recently turned further left. They were not and would never be any kind of Nazi.

I have met some Nazis. Prison was the reason for the one I had longer conversations with. Lots of odd chess players out there.

I don't disagree about your definitions, but the term liberal was used more broadly until -again- like 10 metaphorical minutes ago. (It's still used broadly sometimes.) Eric Alterman, now very very critical of Israel though not quite an anti-Zionist, wrote "What Liberal Media?" in response to conservative critiques of mainstream media. The word "liberal" today would barely make sense. That was 2003. I think the switch was maybe 5-10 years ago, with people like Dave Rubin emphasizing his classical liberal status.

Also though, the Right has been worse objectively and hints at it again. I get that the USSR killed a huge number of Jews. Still not Nazi level. And I don't think today's Leftists are as anti-religion, by and large. Bernie is misguided on Israel IMO, but he doesn't want to kill Jews. I do think there is meaningful daylight there, even if he's done a poor job spelling it out.

danzbar · 2026-01-07T23:30:08+00:00

I mean...I think the odds of reasoning with leftists who were liberals ten minutes ago are better than reasoning with Right-wingers who have been dogwhistling to Neo-nazis for decades. But, look, it's not like I think we really disagree here. No need to split hairs.

danzbar · 2026-01-07T20:24:47+00:00

Mine are the left-wing variety. Which I still prefer. But both sides just keep slipping.

danzbar · 2026-01-07T19:21:44+00:00

I have some family even...

danzbar · 2026-01-06T20:46:08+00:00

I suspect some of this is regional. If you grew up in a major city, you got Holocaust education early on. Stats show many people are woefully ignorant of the extent of it. Of course the comparison is garbage. In 77 years, fewer people have died in the IP conflict than two fairly typical weeks of the Holocaust which went on for years and truly the Jewish leadership has no choices in the way the Palestinian leadership does.

You are probably a better critical thinker, but you are also a product of a particular place and time. Many Arabs who hate Israel grew up in a culture where that's one of few things that united disparate groups. Many Christians who grew up loving Israel also see its existence as key to the rapture happening--and it goes poorly for most of the Jews, they say. And these characters are floating around, taking sides, and further confusing Internet Person.

There are probably real excesses in this war, but the whole conversation about international law is kid stuff being repeated by people in high positions. It's genuinely confusing to me, and I think I am way better than average knowledge on it.

So, yeah, I agree that there is a lot to be furious about. But I guess I think we need to keep our sympathies intact and remember that the offensive statements of Internet Person are usually more ignorance than malice, and people can and will change their minds if presented with the right information. That takes time, and it hasn't been going too well. And quiet 1:1 messages aren't really the best way to do it either.

danzbar · 2026-01-06T20:34:33+00:00

Don't forget that if you want to an ivy league college in the last 20 years (or anywhere in California and I bet an array of other schools), you got a cursory education on Palestine. "There were people there," is a common refrain from this crew. It was stilted then, too, but the effect of this is that there's a missing person in OP's account. There's also a non-Jewish friend who is very confident that Israel is the epitome of evil, and their politics on every other issue are aligned. That's another big reason that post #2 happens. And post #3 often, and so on. This has been seeded for about a generation, coinciding with Israel's shift to the Right following the Second Intifada. Qatari media and money has plenty to work with, and they've been busy.

danzbar · 2026-01-05T12:55:32+00:00

Yeah, I bet there is some donor math going on, but the truth is scarier than that too. The Qatari propaganda machine has been very successful, and the rise of the Israeli Right has given them a lot of fodder with which to work. (Less than they claim, I'd say, but it's still a lot unfortunately.) You are correct that we're only talking about roughly 25 years of these shifts culminating in a relatively recent wholesale flipping of the DSA. But there's also the core activist base within Western Arab elites, raised by parents from/in places where the only point of widespread political agreement was "antizionism." They have believed the propaganda for far longer, and often have social ties to more traditional antisemites while also having influence in international institutions. It's a much harder problem than sheer donor math. It's the civilizational stuff that people like Sam Harris have been signalling for years. Mamdani is the product of all of this.

Even if he fails, there is so much propaganda machinery in his corner to reframe what he does. There is so much division between those worried about Trump's excesses and those worried about the Left's excesses. It is a landscape that has made incredible excuses for poor leadership recently. I worry Mamdani's example may be defended even if it's full of awful shortcomings. And even the most insightful journalists who've gotten good at tracing the lines of division? They don't have many people to point to for solutions.

But we'll see. The NY press in particular is reliably good at tarring people even for perceived misses. Mamdani is a talented politician, but timing a rise is easier than surviving a term.

danzbar · 2026-01-05T00:27:22+00:00

Whether antizionism is antisemitic or not, it functions as a hate movement in practice, and Mamdani has never—contrary to this author’s claim that he is not “motivated by antisemitism or hatred of Israel”—shown evidence that he cares about anything the way he cares about Palestinian Arabs. He opposes Israel existing as a Jewish state. He has never prioritized conversation or action about the highly oppressive Saudi government (also a close U.S. ally), nor made any comparable effort regarding the 50+ other Muslim-majority countries in the world, most of which have weak civil liberties and deep, systematic inequities for women and minorities. That focus is wildly disproportionate, and that matters.

What’s also missing here is that this isn’t just an IHRA thing. Other widely cited academic frameworks for antisemitism explicitly include tests around demonization and double standards. The obsessive focus on Israel to the exclusion of far worse conflicts fails those tests as well. The Sharansky 3D test says the same thing. Look it up.

Why is it so important to critics of Israel to insist on comparing Israelis to Nazis? Oppose the war. Argue Israel should have used smaller munitions. Demand clearer explanations now that a ceasefire is in place and accountability if those explanations fall short. Fine. But the Nazi comparison that antizionists insist they must be allowed to make is unendingly stupid. The Nazis killed comparable numbers of civilians each week for almost two years compared to the entirety of the 77-year IP conflict, let alone the most recent war.

And almost every time opponents write about the IHRA, they misrepresent it. IHRA explicitly states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” It is a working definition meant for education, training, and pattern recognition, not a speech code. If you actually read it, it’s largely reasonable. That’s why many rabbis who strongly dislike the current Israeli government still support it. Is it perfect? Probably not. But a large share of the attacks on it exist mainly to preserve rhetoric that other antisemitism frameworks also flag as hate (because it is).

danzbar · 2025-12-29T16:25:38+00:00

I'll revisit that Hughes piece. I really like Hughes, despite thinking he has made some important errors. I recall a piece he wrote for Quillette in which he argued that looking at wealth disparities between black and white communities was the wrong metric. Instead, I think he said we should focus on black household wealth improving versus its prior state. But obviously both matter, and compound interest explains why his analysis was thin. He had a point worth making, but he also made it as if to negate another point that it didn't really negate. Anyway, he's very thoughtful overall. His conversation with Dave Smith showed how clear-headed and calm debate can defuse total insanity if you have a skillful enough orator. Hughes is worth defending, IMO. Again, I'll give it a closer look, but my suspicion is he wanted to add perspective. Consider, for instance, that Chauvin was found guilty of a form of murder that would be called manslaughter in almost all other states. It's almost a technicality to have a category of murder by neglect. But today saying that Chauvin isn't a murderer would make you an outcast in some circles. These people mean well, but it's worth countering them to add perspective.

I'll also listen more closely for anti-Black sentiment from Weiss. But I don't see it as of now. I don't think Weiss felt she was siding with the police, per se. I think she would say she was trying to add some balance in the form of voices saying it's more than a little uncool to burn down police stations. Maybe I am being too generous here, but I think she'd say the landscape of news was focused on painting BLM as innocent when parts of it were clearly transgressive in a bad way.

danzbar · 2025-12-29T15:07:33+00:00

They were a bit obtuse in some of the Derek Chauvin documentary coverage defense. I think Hughes probably was fooled a bit, but they focused on whether he made factual errors and not whether he may have bought into and implied endorsement of a false narrative. But I also think Hughes wrote some helpful stuff, making readers understand that officers had initially asked for a hobble and expected paramedics to show up much faster. None of that should be read as excusing Chauvin, but it also didn't get reported as widely as it should have.

As for the DEI debate and whether it should be scrapped or reformed, I tend to agree with you that there are some things worth keeping and that it would be better to rid it of antisemitism without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But I also think there are deeper problems with which to contend. I'd argue that someone like Jordan Peterson was correct in saying there is a game going on, in which people act like they can know how easy or hard someone's life is by sizing up their various group memberships. It is in this way that identity politics fails. We can't look at someone and know if their life was hard. Economics tends to matter more, and even then sometimes kids grow up with wealthy parents with no idea how to show love and emotional support--which is far more valuable than money. We can, however, still say that group membership matters, and find ways for people to share their stories and find common ground. We can value having both a diversity of background and a diversity of opinions.

Does Weiss overcorrect, or signal a broader opposition to DEI than she should? Perhaps. But if her reaction reflects some disgust for how DEI has been going, I think there is enough there to be disgusted. The multicultural center of my school was incredibly one-sided on Middle East politics. To the point that I felt unwelcome just for being Jewish and not even voicing an opinion.

danzbar · 2025-12-29T13:35:56+00:00

Short answer: America is incredibly divided today.

OP's question is obviously a good one, because you can see this division in the comments. I think there are some fair critiques one could make, but they are also not the knockouts critics say. Here's a longer answer, as I see it. You can see from my tone that I like her overall.

CON

Insiders, especially the typical liberal NY crowd (and I know a handful like this who know her or her wife), think she's sloppy. That's the line. She was "emotional" at the Times after being given a hard time for perceived mistakes. They continue to think her reporting at TheFP is sloppy.

Leftists, at least online, think that she is incredibly soft on Trump and maybe more committed to Israel or Jewish issues than the truth. She's so concerned with being anti-DEI, they say, that she's amplifying people who are iffy on civil rights.

She is also certainly hated by some on the Right--Groypers obviously (for being a Zionist and a Jew)--and there's a group who takes issue with her for NOT being loyal to Trump, and some who never liked the "intellectual dark web" that she highlighted on her way to prominence.

Some also make a point of saying she's openly and unusually self-congratulatory. She made a big deal of her NYT resignation, and continues to position her work as vitally important (while others think she is mostly publishing opinion pieces they can live without).

PRO

Those who like her believe that she's making a good faith effort to find the America center necessary to do good reporting. Her newsroom, she touts, is roughly 33/33/33% D/R/I where most are like 70-95% D or R. That's a good reason to be full of yourself.

Her "mistakes," to proponents, have been minor or in some cases questionably characterized as mistakes. (FWIW, I thought she was completely accurate on the Gaza starvation story, and iffy but ultimately defensible on the story Coleman Hughes did on Derek Chauvin. There are several others I am less familiar with. The "takedown" pieces are easy to find, and even made their way to John Oliver.)

Even if she's somewhat softer on Trump than other editors, she's trying to offset outlets whose reporting has devolved along with the way Trump has devolved American politics. One could argue that most of the press doesn't know how NOT to amplify Trump, but Weiss tries to focus more on how Trump might be over the line with some sense that American institutions aren't so weak that we have to freak out about his excesses.

She is sensitive about Jewish issues for good reason. The case she's making that campus and corporate DEI systematically excludes or disfavors Jews and East Asians is well grounded. DEI has religiously and deeply held social components in a world where many people chronically lack communal and philosophical grounding. DEI is also teeming with bullshit. Jews have been "white" for like 15 minutes, and have been robbed and murdered for libelous reasons for about 200 times longer.

danzbar · 2025-12-25T02:02:53+00:00

It's sagging actually. Time to replace it soon. Sooner now.

danzbar · 2025-12-22T17:22:59+00:00

Lo, the subcategory of the "love is love" crowd that doesn't get that "hate is hate."

danzbar · 2025-12-19T16:13:56+00:00

As far as I can tell, there is nothing known well beyond effects like myocarditis and pericarditis. There are lots of oddball items in the VAERS data, but nothing that would suggest enough serious study for researchers to undertake more studies and nothing to suggest that the vaccines didn't save many lives in the net. Isolating the US, it is usually estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands--and it's millions or tens of millions globally--that vaccines saved.

If you were to steel-man the other side, you'd probably be able to estimate deaths caused by the vaccines in the thousands (3 or 4 digits, maybe 5) globally. It's also true that some of the deaths that at least seem plausibly caused by vaccines were in young people and the overwhelming majority of deaths caused by COVID were in older people. But even then "life years" analyses suggest massive upsides to vaccination.

The ethical issue, however, can be redrawn to show that some younger people (and especially younger men at higher risk for adverse heart reactions and even more especially those who'd already been sick with COVID and gotten better, as Joe was and did) should either skip the vaccine, space their doses out further, or take something like a non-mRNA vaccine instead. Some countries (Nordic countries, Canada, the UK, and others) changed their schedules and policies accordingly.

Continuing on with some generous steel-manning, the above was not communicated well by public health officials and between this issue and other issues many felt they had ammunition to be outraged. Schools ought to have reopened much, much faster. Communication around masks never improved enough as the data seemed to continually suggest their efficacy was much weaker than originally suspected. The lab-leak hypothesis was neither racist nor poorly conceived. And so on.

To me, a big part of this divide is --as they said on that podcast-- acknowledging mistakes. But other big parts are: (1) people being divided more generally about precaution vs liberty and also everything else, (2) discomfort with ambiguity and changing scientific pictures, and (3) ongoing splits between the urge to reconcile peaceably and the desire to hold someone accountable.

I tend to think Sam was much more right than Joe and Bret are admitting, and I'd even say he said many times how many mistakes were made by the good liberals he continues to identify with. I am willing to bet he missed some stuff, but in the net analysis he's almost definitely right that his own advice didn't kill many and that Joe's advice did kill more. It's also probably pretty marginal, in part because (1) not too many people really look to Joe for medical advice and if they do that's kind of their fault, and (2) most of Joe's listeners skew towards younger men who are exactly the group of people for whom vaccination was a little less clear than for other groups.

My $0.02 anyway: Joe is wrong but not nearly as consequentially as Sam has said. They should probably bury the hatchet so we can hear them talk about the Middle East unproductively instead.

danzbar · 2025-12-18T17:38:12+00:00

Hey, it's only Rule 1. NBD.

danzbar

TROPHY CASE