The phrase “anarchist phase” struck me because I would assume they mean in the teenage “chaos is cool” way. Which I had as a kid, too. But then I find that my ideals are literally anarchistic on the political compass so… Was it really a phase? 🤔
Political compass doesn’t describe any actual political realities; a society where every oligarch is a totalitarian dictator is considered more “free” than a dictatorship of the proletariat where the capitalist class is less free to exploit the working class, a racist who supports a welfare state is somehow in the same quadrant as communists.
Who do you organize with?
Who do you organize with?
Nobody.
If someone’s ideals haven’t had any effect on reality, would you even say they’re an anarchist or communist or whatever in anything but theory?
Yeah, any extant human influences reality in some way.
If their anarchism has never been observed in reality, in the form of action or organizing or trying to build a mass movement, is it meaningful to call them an anarchist? I guess you could call them an anarchist thinker or even anarchist poster because they probably post about it online and talk to people IRL about it?
I guess what I don’t like about the compass is it makes no real attempt to relate to actually existing political movements and the factors that determine their character, and instead does the idealist thing of pretending society is just a bunch of people with different ideas that battle on their own merits.
A Scotsman has to have some connection Scotland, its hardly a ‘No True Scotsman’ to be confused when a chinese guy declares himself a Scotsman, but also says he has no connection whatsoever to Scotland or its people, he just likes the idea of Scotland.
Yes. If their anarchism drove them to adopt a puppy or eat a sandwich, that’s affecting reality. Being an anarchist and doing anarchist things has the exact same relationship as being a volunteer firefighter and actually fighting a fire. Maybe you never get to actually respond to a fire, doesn’t mean you’re not a volunteer firefighter.
Anything else is gatekeeping, although 'm sure there’s tons of “no true Scottsman” types in the anarchy camp.
wtf? A political movement doesn’t just happen at random, and hopefully there’s enough volunteer anarchists around to respond. We have to build any movement ourselves.
Ah I remember these days when I was a kid and believed creepy pastas and SCPs were real
Now I mod a SCP community how the times have changed
The number of people that bought the marketing for The Blair Witch Project is what finally made me realize that people are stupid.
take this with a grain of salt since it was before I was born, but the marketing was apparently very good, including fake missing posters for the actors. A lot of modern analog horror/creepypasta/SCP stuff is so over the top that no one should believe it (especially the Russian Sleep Experiment!) but I’m a lot more understanding of those who were fooled by The Blair Witch Project
They certainly did pave the way with novel new methods of multimedia marketing, but it seemed so obviously hokey to me.
I’m my defense, I was a teenager at the time. But I fully believed that it was actually found footage due to the marketing. That infomercial disguised as a documentary got me.
I was also a teenager. It was also quite obvious that neither the families of the victims nor law enforcement would allow such footage to be released as a film, not to mention the fact that magic isn’t real.
The trailers weren’t that specific. They talked about some students investigating an urban legend who disappeared before their footage was later found. There was nothing about how they died because of magic.
The word “witch” kinda gives it away.
An urban legend could have a real human as the end of it.
That was, like, 97% of Scooby Doo, man.
A brand new one, though?
I’ll admit that Fourth Kind got me. I barely saw much promo material, didn’t see any reviews, just saw a small blurb about the premise, watched it super drunk and high and thought the “real documentary” parts were in fact real and got scared by a dude just slightly levitating off a couch.
Again, I was super drunk and high when I watched it. So I was, in fact, incapable of anything but stupidity.
I don’t miss getting so wasted that I believe in magic.
Ahem
It wasn’t magic, it was aliens. 😤
Eh the internet was in its early days back then. Wasn’t as easy to look stuff up
It was just as easy to smell bullshit.
No it wasn’t. This was back when people still believed ESP had science backing it and Uri Gellar could really bend spoons.
You think the '90s were the dark ages or something? No, we weren’t all brainless morons. The same number of idiots exist now as did back then, and in the decades, centuries, and millennia past. Anyway, go look up James Randi for some fun.
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I already know about James Randi, his reputation isn’t as clean as you might think, dude was VERY problematic
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Dude I remember the 90’s, I was there, the Satanic Panic was in full swing. People believed that there was this epidemic of Satanists going around brainwashing kids with Pokemon and Harry Potter, and the proof was in repressed memories.
You can be an awful person and still be right. If you’re asking people to ignore someone’s legitimately useful work because they’re a bad person, stop.
I already know about James Randi, his reputation isn’t as clean as you might think, dude was VERY problematic
Meaning what? You could say this about anybody as long as you don’t provide any evidence. How funny that you want us to believe a vague claim with zero evidence about one of the most famous skeptics ever.
And you think there’s no similar madness now?
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There were so many adults in the 90s that believed esp was real.
The town I grew up in had so many clout chasers and liars because until the internet became readily available, you couldn’t fact check their bullshit without going to the local library.
I served on a rural fire department from 2004-2012 and both of the captains from my station believed that dowsers are legit. 90% of that town voted for the right in the last election.There were so many adults in the 90s that believed esp was real.
A lot of the media at the time was very pro-“Mysticism” and things of that nature. Typically there were two characters, a true believer and a skeptic, and the skeptic was always vilified with the believer turning out right at the end. X-Files, one of the most popular shows of the 90’s, ran on this.
Police used psychics to help solve murder cases and Ms. Cleo was seen as legitimate.
Yes, those are the morons I’m talking about. Those people are still around today, just as deluded. See how many people voted for Trump?
I was there too!
