mr_world [they/them]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_law
Between 1867 and 1974, various cities of the United States had unsightly beggar ordinances, in retrospect also dubbed ugly laws.[1] For instance, in San Francisco a law of 1867 deemed it illegal for “any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view.”
Ugly laws in the United States arose in the late nineteenth century. During this period, urban spaces underwent an influx of new residents, which placed strain on the existing communities. The new residents were sometimes impoverished. This meant large numbers of people who were strangers to each other now occupied closer quarters than they had in small towns, where such local institutions as schools, families, and churches helped moderate social relations.[6][7] As a reaction to this influx of people who were impoverished, ministers, charitable organizers, city planners, and city officials across the United States worked to create ugly laws for their community.[1]
The language of the unsightly beggar ordinances pertained to hiding the parts of the person that may appear disabled or diseased. This includes any movements that would indicate a disability or disease, like limping.
Damn facebook of the 1800s. Absolutely no historical awareness. Blaming pagans? Fuck you.
Hm wonder if some megacorp funded a social media campaign about how nobody shows up to their drive-thru job in order to blame the inevitable automation on workers.
I completely agree. We can take pairs of senators, one from each party, and put them in a room together with no media or outside contact. We can give them three meals a day, and about 30 mins of yard time. Spending lots of time together will make them more civil. We can take all the pairs of senators and put them in a big complex of rooms, surrounded by a large wall and guards to keep them safe. The longer they stay, the more civil they will be.
Brace didn’t fight against US interests though, the YPG was allied with the US at the time.
Matt’s philosophy is definitely not only electoralism. He’s spoken plenty of times about how useless it is without a worker’s party. Logging off is not disregarding leftist organizing either. He’s specifically talking about being a chronically online poster who’s sum total engagement in politics is shitposting, memes, and consuming online media.
Also, forgot to add, they did go after Brace for being in the YPG. The Trump Admin used him as evidence for antifa being tied to foreign terrorist groups. His name was on literal government documents along with all his silly screen names.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/dhs-antifa-syria/
https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1290384673789673472
We as posters have different goals than podcast hosts though. Our goal is to be confrontational because we don’t care about media capital (because we don’t use it to pay our bills). We can afford to be standoffish pricks who just berate people at the first opportunity. We like bullying libs. We think it’s part of our duty as good leftists. But if you’re a person who has conversations for a living, that won’t get you far. You have to learn to put up with people you disagree with and to pick your battles. You have to sit through someone saying something bad or wrong so you can move onto something more productive. To be fair, this is a skill you need as an organizer too. If you go to someone’s house for campaigning or any kind of outreach, you might have to listen to a chud or a lib say something you know is wrong. You don’t pick an argument with them and then call them a doo doo shid head lib who should get the wall. You behave with tact.
Someone might ask how having conversations for a living on a podcast helps the left, and it doesn’t really. It’s just media. It’s kind a good for information. It’s mostly good for entertainment. It’s not supposed to be the center of the movement. We actually don’t want to live in a world where the center of the left is a podcast. That’s cringe and can’t actually change anything. So it’s okay if podcasts hosts don’t tattoo that Mao quote about disregarding civility. Just listen to it if you want, don’t if you don’t like it. Keep an appropriate sensibility about what media is and what it can do. Even if the Brie or Virgil thinks they’re doing something productive, I don’t think it matters.
I don’t listen to BF but Virgil’s interview on Chapo with Yang was delicate confrontation. He started off slow, worked inwards, and backed off if he felt Yang was getting frustrated or they were at dead end. It’s a soft-soap at first but towards the end Virgil managed to get Yang to basically admit he had no idea how to do his “Everyone gets $1000” plan. That wouldn’t have been possible if he called Yang a genocidal lib at the first point of disagreement.
Oh I’m sure he didn’t change or learn anything. He’s too well-off to do that. Everything he thinks has worked out well for him. The material connection between what his life is and what he thinks is too strong to be changed in an interview. I guess you could then ask why it matters to interview him at all and I don’t think it does. I think some of this isn’t so much a podcast platforming them, but them platforming the podcast. Someone like Marianne has way more followers and people who listen to her than the things she usually goes on. So you as a host have a chance to reach someone new, even if you can’t change the guest’s mind. But how much that actually moves a needle, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone was going to vote for Yang in the primaries who also was a regular Chapo listener so landing that dunk only reaffirmed our suspicions more than had an influence on the election. I don’t think them being more aggressive would have hurt him in the primaries either. It’s just a big luke warm nothing that we attach meaning to depending on what we believe about the nature of media and culture.
He builds a city from ancient times through indigenous camps to colonization and explains historical stuff about cities and how they form and why they have certain features. It’s really good. He uses a ton of mods and custom objects to do it too so it’s somewhat accurate to the period he’s building in.
