Links! 23/09/2015

Misc

  • Rambling Through The Garden is an article about the literary influences and intentions of The Talos Principle. I try not to link to too many articles about, uh, me (it becomes rather narcissistic), but this one turned out really excellent and I thought you might enjoy it.
  • When doing publicity for Talos at various conventions, I frequently stood next to a stand for Dropsy (also published by Devolver), but I never got the chance to play it. Richard Goodness writes about why it’s really good, and I trust Richard’s taste more than most people’s. The post also touches on wider sociopolitical issues, including queerness, identity politics, and shaming/callout culture, in contrast to the game’s themes of empathy. It’s really worth reading.
  • Tom Morello has started a new record label called Firebrand Records, and one of the bands they’ll be publishing is the utterly awesome The Last Internationale. I love many of their songs, including this one.
  • I stumbled across this interesting old article about the making of Alien 3, an awful mess of a movie that has always puzzled me. Writing a sequel to Aliens seems like the greatest fun you could possibly have as a screenwriter, but every single sequel they’ve made has failed to understand what was great about the original movies.
  • The lovely Steven Brust has been writing a series of posts about Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed. They are very much worth following.
  • Identitarians Say Elect People ‘Regardless of Their Policies,’ Exposing Inherent Conservatism of Identity Politics is an absolute must-read on the revealing reaction by capitalist liberals to the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party. Comes with some very telling statistics on the difference between what the majority of women support versus what the people who claim to speak for women support.
  • Kenan Malik’s lecture Free Speech in an Age of Identity Politics is excellent, and goes well with Fredrik deBoer’s Round and Round the Trigger Warning Maypole and his tremendous post about trauma.
  • While I’m linking to political stuff, there’s an excellent article by Touré F. Reed called Why Liberals Separate Race From Class. It involves Bernie Sanders, who is mainly interesting for how he causes other liberals to reveal their allegiances (much like Corbyn), but the main points about race and class are well-made.
  • Finally, I made this meme about the Greek election. The Left really needs a global debate about why, in an age of extreme economic crisis, it has failed to achieve pretty much anything at all.