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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

the old take i had on this was: if you tell people not to create the Torment Nexus all they'll remember is how cool the Torment Nexus was but i have a new take, which is: actually the guy who wrote Don't Create the Torment Nexus fucking loves the Torment Nexus too

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@QiaochuYuan this lil anecdote hits several of your buttons simultaneously

5:31 PM · Apr 21, 2022Twitter Web App

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

Replying to

(yet another use-case for multi-QTs, i really wanted to QT this thread simultaneously with the above, plus the torment nexus tweet really, which is at least linked below)

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

“focus your energy on what you want to see more of” has some distressing implications for the whole genre of dystopian fiction. it suggests that dystopian fiction doesn’t successfully act as a warning, and if anything makes dystopias look cooler, more familiar, more thinkable

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

Jurassic Park pretends to be a criticism of hubris or the perils of technology or w/e but even a little kid knows the actual message is "dinosaurs are fucking rad as hell and if we could bring them back we 100% should" same with Fight Club:

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in the wilderless

@the_wilderless

I usually refer to this as the Fight Club Effect, but is there another name for it?: Basically, that the Message of your story isn’t what you can argue in a paper, or how you wrap up the last 5 minutes or whatever—the Message is whatever most people’s takeaway is.

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

(it may be significant that both of these films are adaptations of books. possibly the original books functioned more like the criticisms they're supposed to be but that they were chosen as books to adapt to film mostly because then the film could be full of cool shit)

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

the pattern is: there's something really cool and sexy but it's shadowy so you're not allowed to enjoy it openly. so instead you *pretend to criticize it* while actually depicting it in lurid, graphic, loving detail, for your enjoyment and the audience's tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

nowhere is this more obvious than when people pretend to criticize sex work there's a 2015 netflix documentary called Hot Girls Wanted. it pretends to be a criticism of the porn industry but notice the preview image straight up makes it look like porn itself. and:

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

this take apparently goes back in some form all the way to francois truffaut in 1973: "I don't think I've really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war." people condense this to "there's no such thing as an anti-war film"

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

truffaut also said "to show something is to ennoble it" academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewconten

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

in conclusion, as usual, say it with me now (but again, with the shadowy twist: if you're focusing your time and energy on it, then... perhaps... on some level... you want to see more of it)

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focus your time and energy on what you want to see more of

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

nice

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in the wilderless

@the_wilderless

Let’s see how this goes, but: what’s some shadowy shit that you have focused time and energy on, and are kinda loathe to admit that apparently some part of you wants to see more of it? twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/st…

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nobody (DEFCON 08/10-08/15)

@netrunnernobody

Replying to

agreed, but one more thing: pick your favorite speculative fiction book. for instance: snow crash -

@nealstephenson

wrote that shit back in 1992. it might've been dystopian then, but it's 2022 now - and now the torment nexus looks like one of humanity's better potential futures.

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