Oh dear.

They're smart fuckin birds, I believe in them

But I feel I should make clear that D&D the game itself is not exactly at fault here: like, okay, it is sort of at fault in the sense that it is a game of fantasy killing people with swords and magic. And it is easier for people to accept the killing with people with swords and magic part when they can imagine that their characters are at least to a degree justified. That is sort of just built into the game (and the game has built into its lore varying levels of making the fantasy of killing certain types of guy justifiable).

But D&D is not at fault for making people go "okay so it's bad when you kill orcs simply because they're orcs. It's better when you kill people who are bandits, who are a class of evil criminals where killing them is actually wholesome and sensible." Like, yeah, most people probably don't think about it that deeply, but the reason people don't think about it that deeply is ultimately ideological.

In older editions of D&D, which were much clearer on the expected gameplay being "go into the dungeon and steal the stuff," there wasn't really this layer there. The rules for combat were generally quite harsh on player characters so combat was certainly something they didn't want to get into too casually, but ultimately the player characters were just going into the dang monsters' house and stealing their stuff. The monsters were arguably the ones acting in self-defense (but they're evil so who cares).

But in the WotC editions the self-defense justification is still fraught because modern D&D especially is an action game. It's a game where characters mostly have access to various methods of visiting violence upon their environs and where the gameplay itself rewards them for violence, because combat is the main source of experience as written in all WotC editions of the game and characters primarily grow in combat effectiveness.

The self-defense angle I feel is not supported by the game's rules itself, but is more of a narrative contrivance introduced by groups to make their characters feel more heroic.

My friend @tenleaguesbeneath once described it as, and I am paraphrasing, "characters hunting things for sport but the things attack them first so they can claim self-defense." Characters want to get into fights (because that's where the rewards are), characters primarily grow in terms of being able to get into cooler fights, but because getting into fights on purpose isn't heroic there's an angle of "those goblins started it" to make the characters feel more heroic.

D&D lives in this shifting impression of 'historic' 'Europe' that doesn't stand up to any real scrutiny but does represent the skirmishes between tiny nation-states while still having a (Holy Roman) empire because Titles Are Cool - the whole thing is rule of cool. As soon as anyone implies that the evil hordes are just stand-ins for black people, that says more about their view on black people than it does about the text's. The way the text is racist (if it is) is often shrimp colours to these people, primarily in that groups representing historically black peoples there at all, as they aren't relevant to the intra-european competition that D&D is reflecting.

Source

That people now are in a huff about """""AI""""" is the whole semantic collapse of AI into 'LLM generative AI' that we are mad about. CAPTCHAs were always training for AI, just it wasn't called AI at the time except when it was by techie people who understood that image recognition is an AI problem. Of course they've turned around and put their training data for self-driving cars and OCR into LLMs, because it's valuable training data.

More than anything else about AI discourse, I hate semantic collapse the most. Anomoly detection and time series prediction are important. There's a bunch of ways that people like that AI is asking them if they want to save an event from their email into their calendar, but as soon as the stink of LLMs get involved, people lose their shit.

And when girls/women are at the receiving end of it, I guess you can call that a form of misogyny if you like (I suppose you're not wrong), but I'm pretty sure at least based on my own internal perceptions of boys/men in my vicinity that this may affect boys/men in the exact same way. During the years I've worked at my current very progressive-culture university, one where maybe like a third of the male-presenting students are visibly effeminate and non-gender-conforming in appearance and manner, and where tons of students are "they/thems" or binary trans, I find myself automatically calling the gender-conforming male-presenting students "he/him" as I have all my life but starting to automatically think of the less gender-conforming ones as "they/them" even when I haven't been told those are their pronouns. I keep worrying that I'll refer to one of them as "they/them" when in reality they're cis and either are proudly effeminate (as many gay men for instance have fought for the right to be) or would rather be more "manly" and are self-conscious about their effeminate mannerisms*; in either case, it could make them very uncomfortable to be referred to as though the speaker is doubting that they're really a guy. ("What, having longer hair and wearing tight-fitting shirts with a little midriff and speaking in a so-called 'gay voice' makes me any less of a man than someone more gender-conforming?")

So I always make sure to bite my tongue on it. But the fact is, in the most progressive parts of our culture, it's quite possibly getting to be the norm that we in our everyday social interactions are doing work in our heads to classify the people around us into genders based on how "manly/womanly" they appear to be presenting themselves as, in a way that seems to have at least as much potential harm to those others, as well as being more cognitively taxing, than instinctively classifying others as men vs. women based on their visible biological characteristics.

I suppose one could read the above as an argument in favor of just assuming absolutely nothing about pronouns and gender identity until being told what someone's pronouns are, an argument for "pronoun circles" and everyone going around with pronoun pins and so on. Which I also really don't think is a great solution for Reasons, but I do see somewhat of a case for it.

Like, we're not nearly at "default to they/them for everyone until you know their preferred pronouns," and I think a lot of people don't want that norm. Many binary trans people specifically want the validation of passing and having people automatically refer to them by their preferred pronouns, and many of these people actively dislike being referred to as they/them. So we're kind of in this ambiguous space where, in the absence of stated preferences or pronoun pins, people assign pronouns based on subjective and ever-shifting clusters of symbols and signifiers.

I know someone who's transitioning right now (like I mentioned once before). Physically, they still look male but have started wearing more feminine clothes and makeup in public. Even then, random strangers still generally default to he/him and "sir." More recently they've started wearing a wig, too. Their natural hair is kind of long but they're balding on top, and they've said that when they wear the wig people will start defaulting to she/her. For whatever reason, the wig is the line in people's perception between "this is a feminine man" and "this is a trans woman."

And obviously that is kind of arbitrary and subjective, and there's no reason that feminine cis men or NBs can't wear wigs, etc. That's just kind of how it's shaken out.

In fact, I'm reminded of how writer and podcaster Kat Rosenfield (who I know primarily through her podcast, Feminine Chaos, which I mention here from time to time), despite being somewhat more hostile to trans activism and dismissive of many aspects of the trans movement than I am comfortable with*, once spoke on the podcast of being offended on behalf of a binary trans acquaintance (I can't remember which gender) who clearly presented themself** as their** identified gender but who kept getting referred to with "they/them" pronouns by the other (very progressive) people in the setting.

*For instance -- and I suppose this is significant to the discussion here -- she's one of the people I've implicitly referred to recently who doesn't believe that being nonbinary is a thing and specifically refuses to say "they/them" on the grounds that that's effectively a demand that she be "custodian" to someone else's religious beliefs that she doesn't hold.

**Ironically, I have to use the pronoun that Rosenfield was indignant about, but in the "stand-in for either 'he' or 'she'" sense rather than the "neither 'he' nor 'she' sense".

But also, there are plenty of cis people who will chafe at being called "they/them".

I mean, in a completely online context such as this one, I don't mind at all -- that's a totally different dynamic from being face-to-face with me -- but I've occasionally been referred to as "they/them" in real-life settings among queer groups and found it unsettling and uncomfortable. Maybe it's something I'd just get used to and be fine with if it happened enough, and it's not as though I feel so internally manly that being called "they" gives me some kind of gender dysphoria exactly, but... I think it's that using "they" referring to someone like me, a very male-presenting person who dresses conventionally for a man, who introduces himself with a traditional male, very non-gender-neutral name that has never been short for a female equivalent of the name, indicates a sort of tribal/virtue signaling from a perspective of pretended ignorance, at the expense of acknowledging the reality that someone who looks and dresses like me and has my first name and doesn't appear to be at all interested in superficial gender-nonconformity in principle is most likely going to be a man. (Or in other words, the fact that at least in principle pronouns are supposed to have greater-than-zero correlation with gender presentation.)

And presumably, a lot of cis people feel much more of an internal sense of gender than I do, and are going to be accordingly more unpleasantly jarred at being referred to as "they/them".

I was reminded of a particular cis(-by-default) male Tumblr user, who I'm not going to name here, who a few years ago got into some discussions about the idea of using "they/them" by default on everybody and expressed his own personal feelings on being called "they/them" which are the most like mine that I've ever seen anyone put in writing. I went on a search and found the threads of discussion about it that he was in. I'm not going to name the Tumblr user or link to any of this, since, I don't know, we're not mutuals, and it was a while ago and he might not want attention on Tumblr suddenly driven in his direction. But I will (for my own bookmarking purposes) say that some of it took place around July 2023, the part about calling everyone "they/them" by default in November 2023, and the following passage (which I relate to pretty hard, except for certain specifics like playing female characters in video games, mainly because I don't play video games altogether) from May 2021.

I generally describe of myself as a (cis) man. But it’s in a way that very actively doesn’t involve identifying with my gender; I don’t like identities or group membership as a general rule. (And I’m definitely cis-by-default in that schema.) In a naive, 20th-century view of gender, this is all uncomplicated. I grow facial hair, I have a deep voice, I have a penis, so I’m a man. And that’s a perfectly comfortable set of statements for me to make, in the same way I’m happy agreeing that I have brown hair or blue eyes; these are physical facts about me, not statements of identity. But in a modern trans-positive view of gender, that doesn’t work. Having facial hair and a dick doesn’t make me a man; my identifying as a man does. And I…don’t. So arguably I am not, in fact, a man, but just superficially present as one. (And I have a couple of female friends who’ve expressed pretty similar feelings to me, in different ways; it’s easy to dismiss this as coming from cis-guy-privilege but it’s at least cis-either-gender-privilege.) And if I wanted to, I could narrativize this as some sort of non-traditional gender. I have a strong distaste for identifying myself as male-identifying; I hate giving pronouns; I pretty much always play as female characters in video games and such. [...] And yes, before you ask, the idea of socially transitioning and telling people that I identify as female feels much more unpleasant to me than telling people I identify as male. But I don’t like either of them. Probably more “authentic” is if I were to describe myself as some sort of non-binary agender something-or-other. (Or gender-fluid? Or something.) And that’s a plausible description of my experience, but I hate it. It feels even more statement/identity-ish than the other things, and while it would plausibly get me a certain amount of social credit in certain circles I’m not going to do it because it would feel awful. My actual, internal gender identity is “I have a penis and that makes me a man and I don’t want it to be more complicated than that”. And that’s an identity that’s being squeezed out.

My actual internal gender is something like "male, I guess 🤷", when pressed to declare pronouns I pick 'any'.

Leaving aside the part of this thread prior to corpus-vak's comment as well as corpus-vak's additional tags about feminism being worse than Communism, I sadly have to attest to the same thing that corpus-vak brings up: that I've encountered people who think they're very smart -- and who are in fact pretty smart apart from how they discuss things like antifa -- who will confidently assert basically exactly what corpus-vak is referring to.

The problem is fully about people who sublimate their opinions and decision making to surface level ideas, including but not limited to the names of groups. It's about going 'oh well obviously I don't agree with that action, but they mean well / are directionally correct'.

This also explains some things about rap discourse. There are some people who use "woke" interchangeably with "bad", and this makes other people get their wires crossed. There are also people who react with some sort of disgust and bewilderment when other people can or cannot articulate why they like certain works of art, or why they don't.

This is orthogonal to the political dimension of rap discourse. To some people, arguing or merely articulating why you like or dislike a book or a TV show (or a piece of writing given to you for you to constructively criticise) is indicative of a certain kind of insecurity and defensiveness.

And to bring it back to the original point, demanding that people not just list what they liked, but explain why, feels like an emotional imposition to them. At least they act as if it is one. At least I think that's what's going on. Until last week, I thought it was a challenge to somebody's aesthetic judgements, as if to say "Your taste is wrong unless you can back it up". I no longer think that. I think the better mental model is "Oh my god. Only weirdos can make coherent aesthetic judgements and explain their aesthetic judgements in a way consisted with their stated aesthetic preferences and philosophy."

And then they don't say "Your painting made me want to puke."

Type A: Nobody can tell you what to do, and if you do it, it's still your decision. You SHOULD DEFINITELY GET THAT TATTOO. Also, on an unrelated note, you should definitely QUIT YOUR JOB and LEAVE THE CHILDREN WITH YOUR HUSBAND and BECOME A VAN LIFE INFLUENCER IN THAILAND but if you ever regret it, it's on you. But isn't that grand? It's your OWN MISTAKE. Definitely not my mistake. I am just sitting here, egging you on, because you SHOULD DEFINITELY DO IT. That's just the dignity of risk. All these people who tell you these stories about regret from face tattoos and ban life are holding you back. DO IT. If you ever regret it, well, sucks to be you. You weren't strong enough.

As a concrete example, I have been known to listen to Trout Mask Replica. Simply put, it is a bad album. It is difficult to listen to, challenging what music is supposed to be. It's very well crafted to be exactly that thing. I like it in small amounts.

I think a lot of people can't handle that - they want a simple 'its good' or 'i liked it' with the proviso that these are totally interchangeable. I'm not the first to observe there's a collapse in nuance, but it keeps happening. There's the related idea of 'this could be better' getting translated to 'this is bad' - no actually, I think this (whatever it is) is good and well made and I enjoy it, but I would tweak it at the edges here which I think would improve it.

I think the thing you're observing is also a rise in the politician's answer to questions that should have straightforward answers, in the sense that you ask a question, and get responses to questions that they wanted to be asked. Safe answers that lead to no commitment towards the stated question by the person answering.

In my mind there's a link to an increased breakdown in the use/mention distinction - obviously it's easy to take people out of context on the internet, and a fun passtime for some, but anecdotally it feels like it's getting worse.

I'm an early childhood educator. I work to keep ten two-year olds safe, healthy and psycho-emotionally enriched. I don't think only giving 70% of my effort to do that would be good for anyone.

My mom is recovering from a stroke at a rehabilitation center. I would really like the staff there to give their 100% caring for residents.

If you're in a cubicle, yeah sure. But if you're primary job responsibility is to keep vulnerable people alive and comfortable, then I don't think discount effort is a good idea.

Ok now you're covered for the days you know people won't be there. You haven't taken into account sick leave. Family leave. Bereavement leave. Training. Travel to client sites.

If people are overworked (can't think why) then they're more likely to leave. What's your notice period? What's the company average notice period? How long does your onboarding take? What's your churn rate; how often do you expect to need this number?

What time code should I bill doing my timesheets to?

If a friend had told me three years ago they wanted to change their name, I would have been using that name for three years.

I have an old friend who we gave a nickname to at university and they still go by that name decades years later.

I'm sure other people, places and things have rebranded in recent years, and some of them pass me by and some of them I follow - my brain supplies Aotearoa sometimes and Ukraine (lacking 'the'), but it doesn't reach for Türkiye.

If a friend had told me three years ago they wanted to change their name, I would have been using that name for three years.

I have an old friend who we gave a nickname to at university and they still go by that name decades years later.

I'm sure other people, places and things have rebranded in recent years, and some of them pass me by and some of them I follow - my brain supplies Aotearoa sometimes and Ukraine (lacking 'the'), but it doesn't reach for Türkiye.