Star Trek into Socialism: or Who Deserves the Future
Literate Machine
Does Star Trek show us what socialism looks like? What would it look like if we organized society democratically instead of allowing a few people to control most of the resources? Bibliography and Further Reading * Obviously, the work of Marx and Engels is key to this piece. Particular texts I drew on here include The Civil War in France (1871) (modern editions contain the first draft and the address on the Civil War) and The Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875). Marx's "La Liberte" speech (1872) is where he proposes that some countries might transition to communism peacefully:...
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Loki and How Conservatives Become Fascists
Literate Machine
Marvel's Loki shows us what fascism looks like, and how it comes to take root within innocuous conservatism. Corrections: • Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Bros are not Jewish. Actual examples of Jewish funders of the right include Sheldon Adelson and Ike Perlmutter. I may upload a revised version of this audio with the names changed. • Malthus never directly said that the poor and unskilled should be liquidated, but he did oppose aid to the poor on the theory that they should be allowed to naturally die out if they were of no use to society in order to preserve resources. Interstitial...
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The Confused Ideology of Schitt's Creek
Literate Machine
How a show about poverty that can't ever bare to really show poverty illustrates everything we've been blind to. Support the show on Patreon and get early access to episodes and exclusive Authors Notes: Text of the show and more information about other formats it's available can be found at: Bibliography and Further Reading - Hallmark Christmas movie montage sourced from: - On the urban-rural divide of Christmas movies: - The TV Tropes entry for From New York to Nowhere: - Ted Koppel's piece on The Andy Griffith Show and modern politics: - A fascinating video that explains how the ethos...
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Defund the Paw Patrol
Literate Machine
Is the Paw Patrol an unintentional conservative utopia? What can the show tell us about how the political spectrum views the police, its purpose, and its funding.
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How the Hippies Became Yuppies: The Trial of the Chicago 7
Literate Machine
How Aaron Sorkin whitewashes the story of hippy activism, and how the hippy activists whitewashed themselves.
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Pixar's Soul: Finding Yourself Under Capitalism
Literate Machine
Pete Doctor takes us into the meaning of life, but is there something hollow at its center of it?
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Why Stories? Henry Fool and What the Artist is For
Literate Machine
What does it mean to be an artist?
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Doom, Myst, and the War for the Soul of Video Games
Literate Machine
In the 1990s, Myst and Doom fought a war for the soul of video games. Myst sold almost twice as many copies. Within ten years, the entire industry had remodeled itself around Doom. Special call out to Jimmy Maher at the Digital Antiquarian (https://filfre.net) whose work covering early video games I drew on extensively.
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Cerebus: Misogyny and Madness
Literate Machine
For 30 years, Dave Sim engaged in one of the most remarkable ongoing artistic endeavors ever while he gradually lost his mind.
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Pink Floyd's The Wall and the Rise of the Alt-Right
Literate Machine
How the worms ate into my brain, what I did and did not understand about The Wall, and what it tells us about the rise of the Alt-Right.
info_outlinePete Doctor takes us into the meaning of life, but is there something hollow at its center of it?
Bibliography and Further Reading
* Soul using uncomfortable blackface: https://noripatterson.medium.com/whats-wrong-with-pixar-s-soul-animation-racism-and-blackface-c9a7709cd50f
* Tom Wolfe’s famous article declaring the 70s the “me decade”: https://nymag.com/news/features/45938/
* Google ngram of the term “personal fulfillment” showing its rise in the 1960s and 70s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Personal+fulfillment&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2CPersonal%20fulfillment%3B%2Cc0
* How distrust of the government among the hippy movement led them to embrace Libertarianism: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/may/19/comment
* Twitter thread about conservative’s using the “money can’t buy happiness” slogan to say we don’t need to raise the minimum wage: https://twitter.com/cons_owned/status/1372670714201968641/photo/1