I just started Cult of the Lamb yesterday. What a strange little adorable game! I'm having a great time with it so far

I played Control, and apparently it's set in the same universe as the Alan Wake games, which I had never heard of until I googled WTF was up with the Control DLC that deeply confused me. It turns out, it's all references to Alan Wake. Which is why I was so confused. I should play them, I really enjoyed Control.

Oh yeah? I should probably check it out again then. It most certainly didn't work several years ago when I quit twitch (Ublock origin is still the adblocker I use) (I don't remember exactly when I stopped using twitch, time is a fuck)

Edit: oh you seem to be correct! I just went on twitch for the first time in years, and, uh, no ads? That actually might be pretty bad for me. Because I will watch streams all day if I'm not stopped from doing so somehow. Well, damn, but also, it's objectively good, so I'm torn

Edit again: oh wait no, just saw an ad, and I'm unwilling to figure out exactly why or what I could do to mitigate it, since twitch is bad for me anyway. Ah well, no twitch for me, it's ok!

Hahahaha, this is what made me quit twitch, for good. I'll do the same with YouTube. It'll suck, yes, but it'll ultimately be good for me and my mental health. 3 years from now I won't miss YouTube.

Well alright, that's fine, but then, like, so what? How is it helpful to think about "subconscious sex" if really the idea there is no more than "some people are more comfortable if certain parts of their biology are changed from what their bodies would do without intervention"? What do we gain by saying something like "everyone has a subconscious sex that may or may not match the gender we're assigned at birth and could even have very little to do with what society calls 'sex' "?

Am I underselling the idea somehow?

(Thanks for talking with me, I'm really not trying to be argumentative or contrarian. )

If sex is entirely constructed, than the only reason we have to explain dysphoria is as internalized patriarchal norms.

I think fundamentally this is what I don't agree with. I don't believe I feel better with a testosterone-dominant endocrine system because of societal norms. It's a body thing, not a society thing, at least for me. But, that doesn't necessarily mean "sex" isn't socially constructed. Why does feeling better with testosterone necessitate that I be "subconsciously male"?

Let me say a little more: I had tits once, and I got top surgery to remove them. That choice was purely societal. In a perfect world, I would have kept my tits while being on testosterone. Would you still say I'm "subconsciously male" if my ideal body would have large (they were big and wonderful) boobs, but also facial and body hair? If so, what exactly does "male" mean? If not, what is my "subconscious sex"? Something other than male or female?

(I do actually agree about transsexual being a word that perhaps we should keep. I far, far preferred when my official diagnosis was "transsexualism" rather than "gender identity disorder". I'm trans, but I'm not disordered.)

I don't think Julia Serano is totally and completely right about that. She's great, and Whipping Girl is great, very worth reading, it really helped me flesh out my understanding of gender, but still, I think she's wrong about, at least, the subconscious sex theory she posits.

I'd like to recommend Judith Butler's new book here, but I'll be honest, I can't read Butler, I find them extremely confusing. For an easier time, you could instead watch Philosophy Tube's newest video, because Abby talks a little about this issue, following Butler. If you're interested, I also could see if my sister would be ok with me posting an excerpt of an essay she wrote on this subject, because that's my exposure to Judith Butler, filtered through my sister's writing.

I'm sure this isn't a complete answer, but from what I've seen from TERF rhetoric, it seems to be basically "girls rule, boys drool". They need to believe that men and women are different so that they can easily split humanity into a very basic us vs them dichotomy, with themselves in the "good" group. I don't know why they want to make sex/gender the fundamental contradiction in their lives, it seems to me there are way more explanatory ways of looking at the world, but every single TERF argument seems to boil down to hating people they perceive as men and thinking the people they hate are biologically programmed to be evil.

But then they rarely take this idea to its logical conclusion, which would be cis-female only enclaves without any cis men or trans people present at all. Even the most rhetorically strident TERFs tend to have a cis man or two in their life who they don't seem to hate. And I have to admit I think that's odd. If someone truly in their heart of hearts believed that evil lived in the penis (or XY chromosomes or whatever), you'd think they would try harder to avoid people with those traits. You'd think genital inspections and maybe even chromosome tests would be a prerequisite to friendship with someone with that (incredibly shitty) belief.

I dunno, I do think hatred and disgust are at the root of TERF beliefs, but I don't think most TERFs really interrogate their own beliefs very much.

Oh hey, are you me?! Went to bed last night at 5:30 pm, woke up at 1:30 am, it's weird, but it works!

How has no one mentioned Outer Wilds yet? That's usually right on up there in these kinds of threads, because it's great. An absolute masterpiece of a game.

Pathologic 2 is also a masterpiece, but a (purposefully) miserable game to play. It's so beautiful and the world is so rich, but it definitely demands perseverance to make it through, because it will do everything it can to make you hate it.

A Short Hike isn't quite as narratively satisfying as the other two, but it's short and fun and extremely adorable. Just a pleasant little world to spend an afternoon in.

But then why ever talk about it at all? He didn't need to bring it up in this article. I dunno, I'm sure I'll never get a satisfying answer. Probably even Jonathan Chait doesn't understand why he does the things that he does

Huh, Jonathan Chait likes charter schools. He says so in this terrible article. Well, he doesn't seem to want to use the phrase "charter schools", instead just talking repeatedly about "school reform". Which is indeed a euphemism for wanting charter schools, as I had to click a link to learn.

Why use a euphemism here? Why not just say you're in favor of charter schools? Is he embarrassed about it? But then why say anything at all? I'm puzzled

and also I broke my adblocker so it's blocking anything that isn't Lemmy or access to Hades II.

That article came out February of last year? How am I only seeing it now?!

The Onion is top notch

I think that's a broom, not a plunger. Assuming I'm looking at the thing you're talking about

Ha, I'm not actually too surprised Jorbs is a communist. He seems super thoughtful and compassionate, and every time I've heard him even gesture towards his own politics, it's seemed like a decent, non-ghoulish take.

It's good to know though! Jorbs is pretty fun to watch, I like his incredibly dry sense of humor. It's so funny to me when someone in chat has a terrible bit of slay the spire advice and Jorbs just absolutely roasts them while never changing his tone even a little bit

This is homelessromantic yet again shilling their shitty Medium blog.

Chris Jeffries, please fuck off

Is it the same nebulous fascist nonsense like "gay agenda"?

Yes. It's literally exactly that. Pretty much all the transphobic talking points are just reheated homophobia.

It's because of the person holding up the Trump scale with their head. The point of this stupid comic is that if you say Biden is bad, then you're holding Trump's side of the scale up, or something. Which is fucking stupid and wrong, but here we are

I honestly hope it's that, legitimately. The alternative is too depressing