Indeed it’s quite relavant. It’s interesting when it happens (selling communism or revolution) and they don’t paint the characters as evil. Like in The Expanse they depict resistance to the inners as justified but then have that resistance largely coming from genocidal maniacs or “backwards,” resentful belters. Andor doesn’t do this to that extent, but it does try to paint the rebellion as a bit more “gray” than good. And there are characters like, Saw, who is radical but is seen as unhinged, problematic, and is hated by the most privileged, liberal coded parts of the rebellion. Further, the SW rebellion is meant to restore the republic–the failed government that basically was fertile ground for fascism. It’s already flawed.

Still, resistance itself is preserved and even if Saw is depicted as problematic he still has a role in making resistance possible.

Basically, Disney feels safe allowing us to imagine resistance right now because we feel scared and are vulnerable to big feels about these things. And it has some extra safety markers just to be sure. It’s predatory, but also we are not powerless to define it for ourselves to the extent we can, and to the extent that it serves us to do so. Capital does not control the world totally or have a cultural monopoly. It must negotiate power and discourse just as labor or anyone does.

The lowest hanging fruit is the easiest to reach.

Maybe I should treat survivers as damaged people who can’t cope with the realities of empire. Perhaps that will show how ethical and measured of a person I am for making trauma the essential variable that determines your value. Afterall it’s all make believe. It’s just a commodity. You don’t exist and neither do I. Why should I care how imperialism is depicted?

Sometimes capitalists are so desperate they will sell you an experience that can help you recontextualize how atrocities are committed and how empires are made in ways that are relevant to our contemporary moment. Should we take it as a sign of hope? A turn in certain western minds? Or of crushing cynicism? Another future of revolution bought and sold? I guess it’s up to all of us to make something out of these times if we can.

It’s interesting that liberals and fascists have also not liked this part specifically. Somehow depicting the empire as more than a force that makes trains run on time has had an impact on cultural discourses and ruffled feathers across political and ideological lines. And since the assailant is killed and the crime is violently refused by a lone woman, it is difficult to invent a victim narrative or a savior narrative to relieve the tension of depicting imperialism in this way.

Furthermore, I think the idea that Andor works to make the empire seem gritty misses how mundane the empire is shown. The show isn’t trying to get gritty. It’s saying that SV is a mundane and obvious part of empire building. Leaving it out carries its own risks, just as depicting it carries other risks.

They blew up some bombers so I guess that is the equivalent to destroying the second Death Star, and the emperor himself, leading to the (slow or fast depending on your source) fracturing of the empire.

So yeah. I think it’s a pretty forced comparison. Maybe if Putin had been killed? Then again Zelensky and western media have more at stake on this than a simple star wars fan does so they never called to ask me.

Thank you for saying this! This is the bridge building that can make a future worth living

IMO it goes further than this. It’s not just poor wording. It is actually implying toxicity is the solution to patriarchy. Allow me to explain if I can.

We know that men benifit most from patriarchy. We know that saying “not all men” is often used to silence women and remove culpability from men that maintain toxic cultures but are not themselves explicitly and aggressively predatory. Especially when there is an established context of addressing rape, sexual assualt, violence, mysonginy etc.

However, this doesn’t foreclose the fact that “men” can be reduced down to a convenient punching bag instead of “predators and enablers” which is more specific even if the vast majority are men. When this happens, and someone brings it up (in good faith or otherwise), the reactions are predictably dismissive and essentialist.

By dismissing these concerns I believe there is a lot of troubling discourse at play. First, as a man, I read it as a signal for me to intensify certain masculine traits–stocism, raitionalism, and self discipline. I feel I am forced to accept that the complex nuances of the world are far too much for some to bare and that I must generously sacrifice my sense of identify, safety, and self worth. I feel asked to give myself up in order to not complicate the oversimplified narrative.

Secondly, this implies a question that must be answered, and is likely to be answered toxically. Why must I make this kind of sacrifice? One answer could be because there is a threat of character assassination for failing to stoically accept that your identity does not fit in the puzzle.

However, I am most troubled by another answer to the question: that the feable, hysterical, ungrounded feminine people in my life can’t function (emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically) as they need to without masculine sacfrice to constitute and legitimize the project of detoxifying masculinity.

What am saying? Ultimately, how we react to the “not all men” bit can indirectly enforce toxic masculinity even as it works to ostensibly address it directly. It also reinforces antifeminist stereotypes of non-men and privileges masculine qualities that will likley trend toward self flagulating. Thus toxic masculinity is allowed space to reproduce.

Why am I saying this? I want to be A man or “masculine,” and I want to be a feminist, and to be part of a healthy flourishing community to the extend that I am capable. I don’t know how to do this when I feel I am asked to embody what I feel are toxic, mysonginist, self destructive qualities that will supposedly make people safer because they won’t have to consider their ideology and my place in it. If I have to poison myself to make people feel comfortable as feminists, we have a problem.

What am I not saying? I’m not saying this phenomenon is all that common or that men should not be held accountable or babied. The discursive elements at play are certainly present in rage bait paltering and among certain toxic individuals and their spaces I have encountered. But I imagine subtle forms of this discourse are still at play on all scales.

I want to feel bad about what I do when I harm the community so that I want to do better for us all. But I don’t want to feel bad about what I am or whole parts of my identity because that will just harm me and still do nothing for anyone else.

Only a nation to the extent pirates are traders, or the extent to which wearing someone else’s clothes makes you someone else.

It’s true. But I am sick to my stomach listening to conservatives taking the high road and feeling sorry for him. Why don’t people want to destroy their enemies suddenly? It’s like they loved him the whole time and all their death threats were just in good partisan fun. I don’t want the left to end up in such a humiliating position that we can’t wish harm and pain on this man. Not because it is salvation but because dignity is at stake and I want revenge for his life of crimes of I can’t get justice.

I hear them all repeated by professionals and academics constantly. It’s so exhausting.

Someone smiling at me while giving me the most dehumanizing, dismissive advice imaginable… I bet this person uses the term “nuerospicy” but refrains from saying the r-word.

Joe’s pain is necessary and meaningful.

It’s not hard in the slightest. It’s embarrassing to have to read this insanity. There is no amount of suffering this man should be shielded from and humanity gains nothing by lamenting his torment.

Stop making a fool of yourself. He should be dead. He should have been dead decades ago.

AI would be used for the advancement of humanity

I think this is a bit overplayed. It’s the same argument as focusing on its potential utility over how it’s actually used. Sure under absolutely perfect conditions, the details of which are unknown yet assumed, AI could become more useful. So what? Such conditions will never arise from “progress.” We already had the kind of education that is most effective and most grounded long before anyone gave a damn about progress.

Further, idk why people treat education as some monolith. I suspect it is because of the School as a technology being so effective at determining and managing “correct” epistemologies and so the medium is the message or something. Certainly there are problems, but the truth is many educaters and academics already know all of this. They know the problems at schools and universities and many even have some practices that bare fruit regardless. No one knows these issues better. We must dispel this notion of teachers as fools lost in their own ass and students as infallible and lacking any responsibility for their education. We paint students as incompetent children when we blame anything and everything but somehow exempt the decisions they make. Sure there is very important context to this, but in any education system students have to put in the work and they have to meet teachers expectations just as teachers must meet students needs. Regardless of class context, “I cheated because capitalism” still makes you a failure with useless ethics and a worthless education. Every breath I take is tyranized by capital. So what? Is this the attitude a union or party should have about education? That expecting it’s members to take responsibility for their education is “idividualizing” the problem? My job is to make students successful and awaken them to understanding themselves as scholars and intellectuals that can see how power impacts their lives and shapes their identity, not give in to every excuse to justify our collective failures and justify AI use.

The problem was: I, along with many other kids at the time, felt alienated from the work – it didn’t seem absolutely necessary to know this work through and through due to how it would translate to your career path later, which if you don’t have any idea what you wanted to do after school or no use for math above basic arithmetic, most people were fine just using a calculator and I know many people today who still can’t do basic calculations on the fly like counting their money or tipping percentages.

Yes solving math problems is masterbatory and can feel ungrounded in anything you do. So is practicing a musical instrument, or any other number of things that very well may be worth doing. But also there is just a lack of perspective among students due to lacking guidance through metacognition. It’s not impossible to teach in a way that highlights how and why what you teach is needed or important. Students often have to be broken out of their neoliberal assumptions that if something won’t guarantee them a career that education has no value and can’t be grounded in anything. The whole world is seemingly against ethic studies and paints it as useless, and of course students often believe it before their first thoughts on the matter.

But what does this have to do with anything? Using AI doesn’t fill the gap, it doesn’t ground students, it does not add any meaning or practically to your studies. It only intensifies these things.

In my experience this was more common 10+ years ago than it is today. Memorizing things temporarily can only get you so far. The problem is that grade inflation means you need to make an A or A+ or you just don’t get it at all. Getting a B means you are very mediocre and getting a C means you need to retake the course or explore a different field imo. If you are only really able to articulate that you understand 80% then you only know enough to be wrong in new creative ways.

I’m worried enough about good students falling into a state department trap, but these mediocre students will destroy us all one day.

I don’t differentiate cheating from avoiding learning. Students get caught and fess up all the time, so it’s possibly even more pervasive than I believe.

I teach things like global political economy and ethnic studies. If a sizable portion of students are using generative AI to fudge their way through these topics, then we couldn’t be more fucked. We can only get more fascist from here.

And AI just compounds on other issues, like our political climate where people basically piss their pants because heaven forbid someone ask you to read 30 pages about enslavement. Not only do they not want to read but they are fairly often very racist and anti-intellectual. How do you address that when everything you can ask them to do to improve their engagement can be fudged?

Id say that is the primary issue. But even so, AI is basically making education a shitshow. I know people go on about it’s utility, but it’s only added misery to the parts of my life I care about most. Billionaires aren’t making my students cheat at the end of the day.

Lmao all of these brands suck