“Social justice” is an awkward term for an immensely important project, perhaps the most important project, which is to make the world a more equitable, fair, and compassionate place. But the project for social justice has been captured by an elite strata of post-collegiate, digitally-enabled children of privilege, who do not pursue that project as […]
Continue reading →It’s not a rhetorical question. I’m generally unimpressed with mobile gaming. I’ve always felt that the combination of small screens and touch-based controls narrow the range of the possible to a really constricting degree. There are exceptions, of course, but I’m deeply underwhelmed by most games for smartphones. I got the Android version of Another […]
Continue reading →I do, in general, believe in the standard old arguments for civil liberties, and I am disturbed by the broad left-wing flirtations with abandoning them on those grounds. Even beyond the fact that I think people should have the right to hold and express unpopular beliefs, even vile beliefs, simply as a matter of basic […]
Continue reading →Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz: So: what is the active moral question, here? What is the issue before us that has actual ethical valence? Is it “should there be harassment of people online”? Are there a lot of people who are pro-online harassment? No. Instead, a question of actual moral valence is how to oppose […]
Continue reading →Drew Magary: Now 90 percent of all internet thinkpieces are dedicated to explaining why you should have a problem with something you originally had no problem with. OPEN YOUR EYES, SHEEPLE. Don’t you see that keyboard cat is a way of enforcing traditional heteronormative privilege in America today? The cat is wearing a house robe, […]
Continue reading →One of the principles that I believe in, but struggle to adhere to myself, is simply letting other people like what they like and acknowledging that differing tastes are what makes life worth living. That has nothing to do with not giving things critical evaluation– I’m perfectly happy to write a vicious review of something […]
Continue reading →Adam Kotsko fears that the Great Lena Dunham Sister’s Vagina Freakout of 2014 may be an irresolvable problem for the left. I have started to notice how often politically-charged online memes open out onto a “no-win vortex.” Take the example of the cat-calling video. On the one hand, it calls attention to street harrassment, which is […]
Continue reading →Chin-scratching about the lack of moderates in the Mooooooslim world tends to produce a lot of dopey analysis, so the bar to come across as really stupid is quite high, but Nina Burleigh has cleared it. Here’s a paragraph that a seemingly literate adult wrote: There is truth to the collateral damage accusation. But let’s […]
Continue reading →Today, Merrill-Lynch announced its new slate of subprime mortgage-backed derivatives through 2019. And there was, naturally, much rejoicing. Of course, because the people doing the rejoicing are made perpetually uncomfortable by rejoicing, and are much happier feeling aggrieved, there was also grievance. This is how you know that your treasured properties are so culturally […]
Continue reading →You have likely already come across this remarkable piece of reporting by Adrian Chen, where he delves into the world of human social media workers who scrub Facebook and similar sites of offensive and illegal content, but if not you need to check it out. It’s essential that we recognize that our visions of a […]
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