Interesting Links for 20-03-2021

[andrewducker]

Right and left have succumbed to the outrage machine

(tags:society )

The Secret Villains of the original Frozen movie (I don't believe this, but I do believe the plot has very messy bits that don't quite work)

(tags:evil movies Disney )

Care workers lose 'sleep-in shift' court challenge

(tags:UK law sleep work care )

Young female Japanese biker with 16,000 followers turns out to be a 50-year-old man using FaceApp

(tags:faces socialmedia fraud photoshop )

This is the most powerful of the videomancer grandmas

(tags:video editing impressive viaSwampers )

This is the best excuse for being late to the pub

(tags:submarine photos )

Designing the NHS vaccine booking system to be more inclusive about gender identity

(tags:gender NHS web )

Zaadii - the real life eco superhero who never got to be (a very touching story. CW: Child death)

(tags:death cars children comics superheroes viaBartCalendar )

The EU's vaccine supply problems seem to be because they were too trusting

(tags:UK Europe USA vaccine trade )

Why do amphorae have pointed bases?

(tags:history craftwork materials )

Humans versus sealions: triathlon edition

(tags:animals humans sport race )

Boris Johnson government in scandalous breach of Ministerial Code

(tags:BorisJohnson regulation corruption politics UK conservatives )

This pretty much sums up how I think brains work

(tags:brains evolution comic )

Domestic violence: Turkey pulls out of Istanbul convention

(tags:Turkey violence women OhForFucksSake )

Comments

Outrage

[anna_wing]

Well, yes.

If both sides agree that only speech they agree with should be allowed, but disagree about the exact content of said speech, then who wins is determined solely by the side with the greater power to enforce its position. It stops being a contest of principle between liberal and illiberal, and becomes a contest of power between two illiberalities (in which people will usually pick the side whose positions benefit them more).

"No platform" makes sauce for the goose as well as sauce for the gander, which is why it is a dangerous tactic to rely on unless you are really sure that the preponderance of power (and, in a democratic society, public opinion) is with you.

Re: Outrage

[lilysea]

"No platform" makes sauce for the goose as well as sauce for the gander, which is why it is a dangerous tactic to rely on unless you are really sure that the preponderance of power (and, in a democratic society, public opinion) is with you.

I think it's a question of degree.

Group which promote out and out hate eg
Neo nazis;
anti-semitism;
racism;
homophobia;
transphobia

should not be allowed to
eg book meeting rooms at public libraries;
give talks at universities

but I don't support no-platforming for
eg disagreements about what the minimum wage should be;
or what income tax should be;
or what trade deals should be.

My threshold for no platforming is "is this talk likely to incite people who attend [or listen to a recording of it later] to verbal abuse, discrimination, or physical violence towards minority groups?"

Re: Outrage

[armiphlage]

Any human rule is going to be misinterpreted and misapplied.

"Is this talk likely going to incite verbal abuse towards minority groups" would be used to ban all non-Christian non-male people from speaking by the minister of the church I had to attend growing up. In his worldview, followers of his religion were persecuted minority surrounded by heathen masses. Pointing out his sexism and bigotry was religious discrimination.

Re: Outrage

[anna_wing]

That's the thing, isn't it? What's hate, what's not, what's appropriate discrimination, what's not (discrimination is just prioritisation of value at the societal level, every society has things it values more than other things, politics is one of the ways to establish that hierarchy). These are all contestable and contested. And if the contest is between unequal powers, then some thought has to be put into the appropriate tactics. Fighting on ground where your opponent is stronger is a high-risk choice.

Re: Outrage

[haggis]

In practice, people have claimed "No platforming" occurred to the talk actually went ahead with no disruption so it is basically a meaningless phrase.

[calimac]

1) Universal social media resulting in universal embarrassing posts in everyone's background: Remember when the theory was that this would cause universal forgiveness? Instead it's caused universal condemnation.

2) My understanding is that the original plan for Frozen was for Elsa to be the villain, but when the songwriters brought in "Let It Go," the screenwriters realized that the character with such a subtly sympathetic (and potential killer hit) song couldn't be the villain, so they retrofitted the role onto Hans, on whom it didn't quite fit. Thus wacko theories like the one in this post.

Also: while Hans's plan to become king by marrying one sister and then killing both of them wouldn't work in a real-life monarchy, one must presume the succession laws in fairy-tale realms are different. (And there are real-world precedents. The Byzantine Empire had something vaguely like consort rule, but it's not called Byzantine for nothing.) Consider the rules by which Lord Farquaad in Shrek intends to become king. Those make no sense whatever, but you have to swallow it for the sake of the plot.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, watching the making of Frozen 2 (which was very good) it is really clear that their process is to keep juggling scenes, songs, and chunks of plot until they've got the best of them, and then file off any sharp edges.

They only, for instance, decided who was singing the song that had been calling to Elsa for the whole movie about three months before the final cut was due. Which I would have thought would have been an important thing. But then I don't make wildly successful movies that makes billions of dollars, so my opinion doesn't count for much!

[calimac]

I suspect that a lot of bad movies have been caused by decision-makers sure that, since their previous movie made billions, all their decisions on it must have been golden.

[danieldwilliam]

There are plenty of ways for a consort to become de facto monarch (or even de jure) following the death of the regnant.

They could get themselves pronounces co-regnant as happened with William and Mary. Or operate as regent like Mary of Guise.

Praetorianism with some well targeted bribes particularly if there are no other obvious heirs.

Or just a bit of old-fashioned muscle and vacant possession like Henry the Seventh.

[armiphlage]

Plus there's always the case that you can slide in new rules and exceptions based on "tradition", taking any patterns or historic precedent, misinterpreting the data, and turning it into a made-up requirement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurmond_rule

https://xkcd.com/1122/

[cmcmck]

Or just move in and take over power by sidelining a useless bugger like Henry III like Simon de Montfort did (admittedly his power grab failed).

Then there's Lord Protector Oliver.............

[calimac]

Neither William III or Henry VII was a consort who succeeded. Both took the throne by conquest. William flatly refused to undertake the conquest if he was only to be consort, so he was just flipped up one slot in the line of succession which he was already high in anyway. And Henry didn't acquire his consort status until after he became king; in his case it was icing on the cake, a kind of peace treaty with the Yorkists.

Mary of Guise, as you note, was regent, and for Hans to follow that plan he would have had to wait until Anna had a child before offing her, and then he could get twenty years as regent. But not king.

[rmc28]

1. That was my understanding of Frozen too, Elsa was going to be The Snow Queen in full on evil villain mode. And then Let It Go which I still adore however-many-years later. (I loved the little reference in Frozen 2 to (one of) Iduna / Agnarr reading a new book by "that Danish author" )

[conuly]

Hans' plan would've failed in the endgame, but to be fair, he kinda had to rush it at the last minute. He'd probably planned on having years to set it up.

right and left

[cellio]

Yup.

No-one really seems interested in changing minds. They are interested in punishing blasphemers. It is a road that leads to the death of intellectual inquiry, or self-improvement, or independent journalism, or even humour. It’s a grim, stony-faced, ugly, punishing world.

It's even worse than that. Not only are they out to punish blasphemers (= anybody who isn't 100% with me; nuanced perspectives are as evil as the other side), but they will seek out and create blasphemy to then attack, for the sake of showing how virtuous they are or something. It's pretty appalling what our society has come to, where people are so averse to having a thoughtful, civilized conversation that takes into account little things like age and context.