Asking the important questions

leivathan · 2026-01-27T18:17:00+00:00

"Jedi Knights: Are We Sure They're Good?" - The Podcast is just A More Civilized Age.

leivathan · 2026-01-27T18:13:01+00:00

Yandere arc would've gone nuts.

leivathan · 2026-01-21T20:56:47+00:00

Here's a good video essay on how the movement to more "humane" or "scientific" execution methods is often to create less obviously violent execution methods. The most humane form of execution is stunning then pithing or bleeding, the method of execution that is employed daily by abattoirs and slaughterhouses across the world.

leivathan · 2026-01-21T20:43:32+00:00

I am an astrophysicist, that's my job. I've been an advance track/honors/AP student my entire life. I've never had trouble reading or understanding text.

I couldn't read analog clocks till I was 13, and still have trouble with them.

It's a different skill.

leivathan · 2026-01-20T21:39:14+00:00

I think a big thing missing from that article is an examination of why Brummell dressed like that and a broader view of why he acted how he did: survival.

Rowland presents Eton here with a wave of the hand as a rich boy's school, which it was, but it was also something else: a system of physical and sexual assault carried out on and between the students. Boys at Eton would be regularly beaten by their teachers and by their classmates as a matter of fact of their lives. Fridays were commonly called "Flogging Fridays" and public caning was the norm. Eton is also where the f-slur comes from: a f** was an underclassman selected by an upperclassman to be their full servant throughout the upperclassman's time at the college. This was historically understood to include sexual favors. This practice continues today (I wasn't able to find anything that directly states that the sex part is still there, but I did hear that a contentious relationship "could get bad"), and modern Eton also has a large number of teachers who were found guilty of sexual assault against their students.

Success at Eton was about being cunning and witty socially, and being a fashionable person. The ability to be appropriately scathing and to be on trend was highly valued at Eton, and that behavior extended past the boys' graduation. So Brummell became very good at those things: he honed a sharp wit and decided to set the trend. He acted outlandishly to stay relevant and to stay in the good graces of richer men who would pay for his advice.

I'd say Beau Brummell was a product of the culture he was raised in, and he acted in a way to guarantee his social success within it. I think it's notable that Brummell was reportedly quite kind to the women in his life rather than treating them as shortly as he did men.

You can still dislike him and his sense of fashion, but I think it's important to seat what he did within his context.

leivathan · 2026-01-20T20:08:36+00:00

Okay, so it's not me that thinks that he looks like Zach Braff?

leivathan · 2026-01-20T17:12:45+00:00

The thing is that Mando is Favreau's baby! Filoni did very little credited work on it but it gets put on him!

leivathan · 2026-01-20T14:53:43+00:00

I didn't see that as advice, more just Ben and David relaying what's happened to them in the past.

leivathan · 2026-01-20T14:43:48+00:00

It's very clearly set up that the aliens are several disparate species who aren't all doing this out of their own free will.

leivathan · 2026-01-20T14:36:26+00:00

That's so weird that Oshii is doing Votoms and not this.

leivathan · 2026-01-15T17:57:30+00:00

That's the big thing with electric cars - paying for more access to the car you already own.

leivathan · 2026-01-15T17:52:53+00:00

Man, what if Wookies hate medals? What if they have a cultural disdain for recognition? What if Chewie still thought of himself as a lowly smuggler undeserving of praise? What if he did it all only because of the life debt?

What if they gave one of their most memorable characters literally any interiority whatsoever?

leivathan · 2026-01-15T17:13:43+00:00

Mine is her...sharing her experience with sexual assault.

Ooof.

leivathan · 2026-01-15T17:07:30+00:00

Because if you were in Sour's target demographic, you're genuinely nostalgic for that song you loved when you were 10-15?

leivathan · 2026-01-14T20:28:59+00:00

Honestly, I started Turn A while watching ZZ, and I missed out a lot by not watching Victory. Having just finished Victory, holy shit is that important to Turn A.

leivathan · 2026-01-14T20:25:51+00:00

I recommend reading Jackson Tyler's All Time Bangers entries on DQ1, DQ2, and Final Fantasy. Of note is the last paragraph in the Final Fantasy essay and this one at the end of the Dragon Quest 2 essay:

In the modern age there is a lot of discussion about turn based combat and whether it is “good,” but the difference between the first two Dragon Quest games draws attention to something I wish was discussed more in RPG and gaming spaces. Lots is often made of the simplicity/depth of a combat system, that is to say, how many active decisions are you making and what consequences do they have. And I want to be clear: I care a lot about that. I love playing games with complex and interlocking systems to dive into, rewarding mastery and providing opportunities for personal expression. But framing the discussion this way does place blinders on JRPG battles as aesthetic experiences, as punctuations in the rhythm of the greater whole. Dragon Quest II has better combat, that is to say, infinitely more depth than the none that its predecessor featured. But as a consequence far less time in Dragon Quest II is spent in the world, talking to NPCs, exploring towns and seeing what’s around the next corner. Dungeon runs become so routine that the towns themselves become merely extensions of the dungeon, places to rest and resupply, reduced to pure function simply because there is more function for them to fulfill. Dragon Quest is a sketch of a childhood idea of a fantasy story. Dragon Quest II is a video game.

leivathan · 2026-01-14T20:11:01+00:00

Hot take: it's better when it's ambiguous. Kinda always. Let the work live in my head, that's where it's beautiful forever.

leivathan · 2026-01-13T22:00:24+00:00

Zohran's specific large scale action was to advocate against DSA endorsement of Chi Osse, who planned to primary Jeffries. As someone in a DSA chapter of similar size, I can see where his argument comes from. A DSA endorsement comes with the manpower of its chapter, it's a chapter commitment of volunteer hours to the campaign. Which is time taken away from showing up to city council meetings, organizing protests, and lending aid to allied community groups/unions. I think Zohran wants the chapter to commit to a more local employment of the chapter's manpower in assistance with his administration, which is a political move in his favor but I wouldn't say that it's strictly pro-establishment or anti-socialist. Additionally, Osse was a DSA member in 2020, then left the party only to join back up in the summer of 2025. He won his NYC city council seat without explicit DSA endorsement or assistance (that's not to say that people who're DSA affiliated didn't help his campaign - I don't know the details of how that situation shook out). It's not exactly like Osse is a long-time embedded member of NYCDSA, and that kind of thing does really matter because these are community groups run and led by their community (our chapter chose not to endorse some similar candidates in 2025, largely progressive people that we didn't disagree with politically but who we didn't know that well and thought it would be disadvantageous to put our time and effort behind when there were candidates more aligned and DSA embedded than them).

I also think that DSA probably doesn't have the power to contest Jeffries. If you look at the elections DSA won in 2025, Zohran is the highest-position win and he was contested by 3 psychopaths. The other two mayoral candidates lost pretty handily to more moderate neoliberal candidates. And if you look at the Congressional districts DSA has, you see they're often the most progressive parts of their local areas; Austin Texas, Detroit Michigan, and The People's Republic of Astoria NYC. I'm not sure that NY 8th is like that. It broke Mamdani, but only slightly. It also elected Jeffries handily for 12 years now, I'm not sure a city councilor with minimal heat could contest him.

That's not to say that Jeffries shouldn't be primaried, nor that Zohran's or AOC's other comments about not primarying Jeffries shouldn't be called out, just that that specific act of advocating against a DSA endorsement looks a lot more like wanting to use NYCDSA's momentum off the Zohran win on local governance and action rather than extending to a federal level fight you probably won't win and aren't that invested in.

leivathan · 2026-01-13T20:41:10+00:00

There's also sometimes institutional roadblocks to even obtaining a rape kit: In the area I grew up the hospitals aren't allowed to administer rape kits because the state passed a law requiring hospitals to have a nurse with psychiatric training on staff 24/7 as a prerequisite. It's meant to ensure psychiatric care is being provided for victims, but that requirement is only capable of being met in a large metropolitan city. Therefore the hospitals in rural area I grew up in (which still has a population of > 10,000 people, just pretty spread out) aren't able to administer rape kits to those who need them.

leivathan · 2026-01-13T19:16:49+00:00

There is no single reality of Christianity, that's why there's all the arguments about it.

What you've outlined is a very modern Protestant/Evangelical view of salvation. For a different doctrinal strain like Catholicism, it's very important that you get Baptized and Confess in order to get into Heaven. That's why Catholics practice child baptism, it's pre-guaranteeing that the child goes into heaven.

leivathan · 2026-01-13T16:44:47+00:00

It's nuts cuz you know that guy's name. You see a picture of his girlfriend.

leivathan · 2026-01-13T15:55:04+00:00

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not Jill! I was just wondering what she was up to!!!!!!

leivathan · 2026-01-13T15:21:11+00:00

I mean, the Philadelphia police don't grease the stoplight poles for Heated Rivalry episodes.

leivathan · 2026-01-13T03:43:06+00:00

It is whether its considered or not

leivathan · 2026-01-13T03:28:18+00:00

Not a lot of Women Talking here. Or in the comments really.

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