It might as well be my own hand on the madman’s lever—and yet, while I grieve for all innocents, my soul is at peace, insofar as it’s ever been at peace about anything.

Psychopath.

    • blakestacey@awful.systemsM
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      7 days ago

      You know who Scott Aaronson reminded me of, back when he first had his incel-ish blogospasm? Tatsuya Ishida. Scott Aa’s blogging echoed, to an extent, the “Sisterhood” phase transition of Sinfest. Both of them stemmed from a man being his own worst enemy. In both cases, my reaction was, “Good grief, bro, take a breath. There is not a mass movement to declare that your penis makes you bad. Whatever you’re reading, you’re seeking it out to hurt yourself because some part of you feels you deserve to be punished.”

      For those who don’t rubberneck at online car crashes, Sinfest was a popular webcomic in the early 2000’s known for raunchy, bawdy, deliberately “edgy” humor delivered with rather technically adept art. It was anti-establishment during the Bush years, with a bit of a “spiritual but not religious” streak. Tatsuya seemed to mellow when Obama rose to prominence; the strip bought hard into the “yes we can” message. And then… whoo wee, things got off the chain. He swerved into “feminism”, of a self-flagellating kind. Then from anti-porn, anti-sex-work-ism, he went TERF, then MAGA, and eventually esoteric pagan neo-Nazi. The art quality decayed apace, first discarding the personality of the brushwork, the settings, the character design… eventually losing its grasp of basic frame-to-frame continuity. A significant fraction of it by now is probably AI slop. Tats’ politics have degenerated into a few hateful ideas in orbit around each other. One Reddit user said, IIRC, “Tats believes that genocide is bad because the Jews are doing it.”

      Mirror images, man. Mirror images.

      • shinigami3@awful.systems
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        7 days ago

        That’s an interesting parallel. Tats endorsed the view though, and now went full anti-semitic. But both are battling their imaginary demons

        (Random comment, but I love how the sinfest subreddit basically became a sneerclub for it)

        • blakestacey@awful.systemsM
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          7 days ago

          The Sinfest subreddit does have some real gems.

          What’s he doing with the hammer and chisel? According to this comic, you become a Christian by signing a contract that you believe will improve your life (or death, I guess). Several tiny undead Jewish skeletons will then enter through your mouth, and your eyes will become screens that display religious symbols. How will woodworking tools help with any of this?

          https://www.reddit.com/r/sinfest/comments/1mvcffn/comment/n9plpf5/

      • TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systemsOP
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        7 days ago

        Never heard of Ishida, but he sounds like he’s yet another one of those people for whom politics and belief are just “vibes”. There’s no principle, no rational basis, just vibes. I feel like more and more of the world is becoming this way. Or perhaps it always was this way, but the Internet has just made it more evident.