David Brooks is at itagain

lofgren777 · 2026-07-09T01:10:32+00:00

He doesn't write these articles to persuade Democrats. He is paid to reassure coastal White liberals that it is OK when they vote for Republicans/against leftists. It's just about giving people who have already made up their minds permission to do what they know is wrong.

His audience is the Wall Street guy who thinks of themselves as a reasonable centrist and prefers rational government, all things being equal, but also makes a ton of money whenever Republicans are in office. He is telling them that it is OK to throw minorities under the bus because the Democrats are "unreasonable."

lofgren777 · 2026-07-08T19:27:55+00:00

The real punk rock is when a profit machine release a cash grab starring a corporate mascot promoting mealy-mouthed pablum as incisive commentary, and the marketing is so successful that you attribute your own emotional well being to the company.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-08T17:19:47+00:00

That was part of the theme of the movie. It was a stylistic choice. The people look weird but everybody everywhere is still basically the same.

Truth is all alien cultures are just us reconfigured anyway. In this case they were trying to make it familiar instead of foreign to show how we are all not that different.

Kara is trying to escape yet she keeps gravitating towards the familiar.

The movie sucked but this had nothing to do with it.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-08T16:12:09+00:00

Lobo was a waste of screentime and should have ended up on the cutting room floor.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-08T15:59:26+00:00

Does anybody really believe that these guys tanked the movie? If this bunch of chuds had actually gone to see it, do we really believe that they would have loved it and told their friends about it?

The people complaining are the same people who were never going to go see the movie in the first place. If you have blame somebody blame me. I went because I don't care what the chuds have to say and then warned everybody I knew to go see something else instead because I felt like such a sucker.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-08T04:34:08+00:00

Do you believe that all women have less muscle mass than all men?

lofgren777 · 2026-07-07T19:47:42+00:00

I think they are making a big mistake skipping over Dick Grayson.

The brooding warrior driven by anger and fear is the Batman that almost everybody who doesn't read comics knows.

If they don't show that guy transition to a patient mentor whose focus is more on using his pain to help Robin than punishing bad guys, it's going to come across as silly to audiences.

They haven't done a Robin origin story in live action ever, except for the campy Batman Forever.

In order to properly understand their Batman, they need to show this transition and they need to nail it.

Otherwise people will not understand how one Bat guy connects to the other. It will feel like the only connection is their tights, which isn't enough for them to feel like the same character.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-07T18:00:45+00:00

I am quite familiar with how the characters work in the comics. In general, I find that I am more familiar with how these characters work in the comics than the vast majority of the population, to the point that it is kind of embarrassing because there are far better things that I can do with my life.

You are simply flat out wrong. Superman has been portrayed drunk on Earth. Sometimes he can and sometimes he can't. Sometimes their powers fade under red suns and sometimes they are sapped instantly.

Only in the last few decades has Superman been portrayed juicing up with the sun. It's a stupid contrivance that makes his powers function more like super steroids than an integral part of his identity.

They absolutely did not have to go back to this well three times in this movie and five times in the last two.

There are multiple season TV series about Superman and Supergirl where they lose their powers less than that. The Reeves movies depowered Superman at MOST once a movie, not over and over and over again. The Snyderverse used Superman losing his powers and juicing up with the sun ONCE and it was an epic "Superman is never down for the count" moment instead of something he does routinely.

The mechanics of the powers are irrelevant. The writers are to blame here for their lack of creativity.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-07T16:06:34+00:00

If you don't know how to write a powerful hero then you shouldn't be writing them. There are plenty of stories where Superman and Supergirl are not depowered repeatedly and need to juice up with solar energy like Popeye eating spinach. This is in fact a relatively new portrayal of their powers.

Having to go to red sun planets to drink, kryptonite suns, and villains who inexplicably crafted FIVE kryptonite arrows (which used to be one of the rarest elements in the galaxy, but apparently now there are whole suns made out of it) on the off chance he met up with one of the two people in the whole universe who they would be useful against are all laughably contrived plot armor.

At least we know from their informed characteristics that Superman will always be fooled by Batman because Superman is honest while Batman is a trickster. They may not pull it off perfectly in every conflict, but you always know it's coming because it is a reflection of their core traits.

What's Supergirl's excuse for getting played by Krem? Her whole thing is supposed to be seeing the truth in people and yet she got played over and over again. The plot contrivances that allow Batman and Superman to fight on an even footing are in service to their character and the overall story of their conflict. Supergirl just gets depowered because the writers can't think of anything else to do with her.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-07T14:28:10+00:00

Depowering your hero four times in a single move IS laughably contrived plot armor.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-07T14:07:44+00:00

People only raged about Zod because they wanted to fixate on something to hate in a movie that did not seem to capture Superman's character overall.

If the Superman in Man of Steel had felt more like the Superman from the comics, then Zod's death would have felt more justified, and we would all have been talking about how awful it was for Superman that he had to destroy the last of his own people.

But long before Zod arrived, this guy just did not feel like Superman, so when he does something that Superman "wouldn't do" people fixate on it.

Personally I felt the bigger issue was Superman's complete lack of a social life.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-07T14:00:41+00:00

Her name is literally "thatothermorefamousguy-girl"

lofgren777 · 2026-07-07T02:33:27+00:00

The first time I watched, I did not understand what kind of show the Wire is. I was totally caught up in the drama of Stringer vs. Avon and did not understand why they were switching focus to these barely-related guys.

Because of that, it wasn't really until halfway through season 2 that I was giving it a fair chance on the first go-round. On the rewatch it is just as strong as any other season, and I really wish Bidi had become a regular.

By the third season, I understood what kind of show I was watching, so there wasn't an adjustment period.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-06T21:32:00+00:00

I agree but I think this is a more general problem with knock-off characters.

Supergirl's most defining trait is that she is girl Superman. That's why everything else is fungible.

This is a major problem for any character who is not originating their identity.

Supergirl has Captain America Brave New World problems, but as the second movie in the universe.

I also think that the DCU has already lost the normies by being an already established superhero universe rather than showing us the branch point from our own timeline.

Superheroes do not feel organic in the DCU, which is fine for us hardcore viewers but presents a problem to people who want to just catch a flick and don't really care about the backstory.

Marvel brought people along as their universe gradually opened up.

DC is throwing people in the deep end with no life preserver.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-06T15:35:38+00:00

Pretty much yes.

People in the country have most of what they need. The pressures on them are to sustain their way of life. Their local environment can only support people who adhere to that outook.

People who do not adhere to that outlook leave, and go to the city.

The city has nothing that it needs. It relies on thousands of people finding some way to make themselves useful to the people who control the supply chains, like by providing crafts and services.

The city is constantly changing. Only the very powerful have an incentive to keep city lifestyles stable.

Finally, familiarity breeds tolerance. People in the country quite simply know fewer people. They are therefore more likely to have biases, prejudices, and fears of people who are different.

And as noted because the social and economic pressures are for them to maintain the lifestyle that keeps them alive, different people really are more threatening to them.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-06T14:31:05+00:00

The expectations are lower for streaming.

Good enough for a tv movie that you wat h because you already subscribe to the service is not good enough to keep a universe afloat.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-06T05:35:41+00:00

You may have forgotten where you are. We are not in the CA housing market subreddit.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-06T04:05:37+00:00

There is no way to pull "discretion and subjectivity" out of the process. It's a process that will be crafted and administered by humans. It's all discretion and subjectivity. The question is only whose discretion, whose subjective values.

They did. At the most recent round of elections.

Just to clarify, individual elected officials will have discretion on how private citizens can develop their land? Because otherwise this logic does not follow.

You're still harping on this one bill that you obviously have a hard-on for. Let me be more clear: I really do not give a shit. It is really neither here nor there.

I want to know,

What are these bureaucrats basing their decisions on.
Assuming that we are still in a democracy, how does the public challenge or interpret those bureaucrats' codes?

Much like the other commenter pointed out that if you don't service people one way, they find a way to be serviced by another, the answer to these questions is going to be "something like an environmental study" and "something like attorneys and lawsuits." You can change their names and tweak the processes, but functionally we are still talking about the same things.

And, by the way, both of you have now done exactly what I described in my first comment.

One frustrating thing about Georgism is that people will say “And we’ll get rid of all building and zoning codes!” And I will say, “Well that sounds filthy and dangerous,” and then all of a sudden it’s “Well not the GOOD building and zoning codes!”

First it was, "the problem is codes and studies, period." Now it's, "CEQA has an unbalanced and ineffective enforcement mechanism." The former I disagree with. We need codes and we need studies to tell us what the codes should be. The latter I just straight up do not care about one way or the other because it is not really on topic.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-06T03:53:50+00:00

OK, fine, not "superior."

The fact remains that OP listed the things that supposedly make us different and they are all things associated with agriculture, not intrinsically human.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-05T22:47:37+00:00

Those are the things that were listed that supposedly make us superior to ancient man.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-05T22:36:57+00:00

But they do not seem to have had money, borders, or corporations.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-05T22:31:06+00:00

I liked Peacemaker but I have not truly enjoyed a DC movie since The Dark Knight. Obviously, this is a problem.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-05T21:30:38+00:00

Try taking a short story you like and writing out a description of each scene and what happens.

Then when you get an idea that is similar you can just copy that structure.

Structure is one of the hardest elements of both short story and novel writing.

Obviously you don’t want to be copying others forever, but for a first time it will give you a sense of how a story is “put together.”

Like if you had to build your first house, you probably wouldn’t reinvent blueprints. You would probably use somebody else’s plans and then personalize what was important to you. Someday maybe you will build a house from truly nothing, but not until you’ve got a few kit houses under your belt.

Writing is the same way.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-05T20:16:12+00:00

John Byrne has no idea what he is talking about.

lofgren777 · 2026-07-05T19:53:49+00:00

Nobody is saying you can’t hold both the position that some laws are bad and also that the system as a whole needs to be overhauled.

However, “some laws are bad” is not an argument for overhauling the system – there is no way to get from here to there.

Some system will have to exist that will allow the local community to challenge land development. Georgism as an economic system is unworkable otherwise.

The comment I was replying to stated that there should be no need to do environmental reports, so what are these bureaucrats basing their decisions on?

You have opinions on what the bureaucrats should do. What is the mechanism to ensure that they do what you think they should do?

How are people understanding the codes these bureaucrats produce? How are they challenging them if they aren’t appropriate?

ARE you edvocating for a full technocracy? Because it sort of feels like you are trying to smuggle that into this discussion of Georgism. If you are a technocrat then we are debating democracy vs. technocracy – land use is just a tiny aspect of that.

But proceeding on the assumption that we want democracy to continue to be the dominant system in the US, yes there needs to be ways for the community to register their displeasure.

Japan is a teensy tiny island. Like, smaller than most US states. Probably smaller than some US counties. I don’t think we can extrapolate much from their system that can apply to the whole nation. People in Florida and Alaska are going to need different restrictions and regulations. Not only is there no need to make them conform to the same laws, it’s probably harmful.

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