Soleos @ Soleos @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

This is coming from someone who doesn't necessarily disagree with burning down Tesla dealerships.

1. Define terrorism
2. Explain how burning down Tesla dealerships to resist Elon's political takeover is not terrorism

I hate Elon and I don't even disagree with targeting Tesla. But let's be real. Mass targeted vandalism and especially arson are clearly forms of violence. The victims of this violence are civilians and the purpose of the violence is to achieve political goals through instilling fear.

Agree with the actions or not, that's terrorism.

If people started targeting and burning down costcos for being woke/DEI, that would be terrorism for the exact same reason, not because the ideology is different.

People need to stop pussyfooting around the label and accept that words mean certain things. The issue is not whether or not it's terrorism. The argument should be whether or not the actions are justifiable.

It's like whinging about whether or not we say "Osama Bin Laden was killed" or if the person who shot him is a "killer" because killing in general is bad/wrong.

Now the government response of categorizing certain people vs others as terrorists matters. What it means for people resisting Trump matters. But those are different arguments.

I think it would help if you clarify what "propaganda" means to you, as I have a sense we mean different things.

For me, I understand propaganda as media/content/communication aimed at manipulating people towards a particular point of view. It's often characterized by reduction, misrepresentation/deception, disingenuous argument, and etc. That is also to say that I make a distinction between manipulation and persuasive argument. So, a piece of content can make an argument, display inherent biases, employ persuasive techniques, without being propaganda. That's because all forms of expression necessarily hold an ideological position.

The book is an exploration of and presents an argument for militarism. That alone doesn't make it propaganda. While many of the sentiments, implications, premises in the book carry a clear bias, the book nevertheless invites the reader to engage with and reflect on the ideology rather than aiming to manipulate and indoctrinate the reader.

I'd say the earnest argument presented by Heinlein in ST is flawed and morally objectionable, but not a piece of propaganda.

More than that, it was bipartisan with Republican contribution

You are correct, tariffs hurt everyone. The direct cost is paid by the importer not the exporter. Part of the reaction-turned propaganda point about the US is that American people will bear the brunt of the tariffs. This is because Trump/MAGA framed tariffs as a tax that other countries would pay the direct cost of, not the Americans importing the goods.

This led to a downplaying of how it would negatively affect the foreign industries exporting the goods, and apply political pressure on those countries. This is how tariffs usually work, you put tariffs on certain goods to apply economic/political pressure towards specific goals, e.g. tariffs on Chinese EVs to protect NA auto industry. This still hurts NA consumers in that they don't have access to cheap Chinese EVs, but gives NA auto a chance to catch up. Tariffs are a normal economic tool that can help with bringing industry back into your country, but it's a tricky balance.

Canada is under no illusions that we will have to pay tariffs on imported American goods. There's also a nationalist reaction to boycott American goods to an extent for starting this trade war, but Canadians will still hurt. The alternative would be to take it and submit to America's whims, which is not a real option.

This trade war is not within the norms of standard economic diplomacy/negotiation though, it's just unhinged chaos. IMO the chaos is the point, giving cover for Trump&friends to solidify complete control as they turn the US into an authoritarian regime and helps to bring American industries to heel under their rule.

Or they could just respect the ceasefire they agree to when they finally do agree to one, which is the point of this piece.

Well they are accountable to the FAA, which is why Elon is dismantling it

Fuck Elon and the argument is cute... But SpaceX is not exactly the right target for it because these tests are funded with private money and the whole point of these tests is to give the tech a safe and controlled opportunity to fail so they can write a report on why it failed so they can address it for the next test.

Perhaps you can find some big publically funded projects under Elon's companies that lack scrutiny.

Back to Ventrilo and Teamspeak it is then

Federal pandemic response was a mixed bag, but far from the shitshow of governing that some other countries experienced. Trudeau showed strong leadership through that period in my books.

Now that's just 尺卂匚丨丂ㄒ😅

Not every kid has the privilege of being born to parents who give a shit or are even in their lives for one reason or another.

Still my original point was not about what the actual good pragmatic solutions are to reducing accessibility (a spectrum from can't avoid it to mildly inconvenient to highly inaccessible to banned). It was about recognizing the problem at all.

Because we live in a society and things that impact society impact you, as a member of society. It's the same reason why we have age restrictions for alcohol, porn stores, and cigarettes. It's also why we have laws about seatbelts, labour, and certain non-toxic but excessively unhealthy ingredients. Even if you take giving a shit about others out of the equation, the self-interested view knows that what happens to others' kids now can and do become your individual problem down the road.

Enforcing age restriction is not a ban. I think as an adult it's entirely your perogative to watch your dwarf porn. However your framing of "making everything kid friendly" is a bit misleading and disingenuous. It's quite the same as complaining everyone is always trying to make things kid friendly because they check your ID at the liquor store. Would it be more convenient if you could just grab and go? Sure. But the social harm without it clearly outweighs the inconvenience.

The fickle problem with the internet porn is still privacy and data security, but that's a separate issue.

The privacy and security issues of this are pretty obvious. However I do think that the easy accessibility and ubiquity of porn and highly sexualized content for children and tweens is a serious problem that people who make fun of porn restriction efforts fail to address or even acknowledge.

Certainly a lot of the responsibility falls on guardians, but it's hard to moderate when you're up against the giant machines of social media. They need help to limit exposure. And this isn't some prudish "oh no protect the children from the titty and the peen" attitude. I don't think most people feel comfortable with the idea of 10-year olds sharing videos of aggressive gang banging or throat fucking like it's a normal thing. And obviously this isn't exclusive to porn. Plenty of explicit and gruesomely violent content out there to be worried about. But the internet footprint of porn dwarfs everything else put together.

What do you think he's doing on his tour?

So you would have taken the offer to leave the country for safety and handed the country over Putin, got it.

The whole point of notepad is that it's a lightweight minimalist app that makes opening/editing text files as fast as possible while also being robustly reliable because of its simplicity. These are its core features. Adding pop-ups and more advanced features makes it slower to use and more complex, and with more complexity there is more chance for issues. Therefore the key advantages of notepad are shittier-->enshitificstion

Why do I have to care about sports in order to care about trans folks who care about sports?

Do I have to care about every last hobby or fandom before I can weigh in on the justice of whether black people or gay people or poor people should be allowed to participate?

Current best practice AFAIK is exactly this. Gender care includes psychiatric/mental health, and occupational (ish) therapy that leads up to surgery after a lot of care. Gender dysphoria, like many things has an internal and external layer where society sets expectations and acts on us based on our gender expression in ways that can be quite brutal. Some folks may end up enby or smth or find something acceptable without surgery, which has its downsides. However none of this should preclude surgery as an option, as evidence has shown it is a highly effective treatment in our current context.

This is the biomedical view that focuses on dysfunction and suffering of the individual and addressing that dysfunction. There is a more philosophical/existential view worth understanding to balance the biomedical view. It is one that acknowledges that we are who we are and we develop the way we develop. If we are to flourish as humans and as a society, it must be through compassion for each others' experiences as human subjects struggling to figure ourselves and each other out. Imposing one's worldview on others by force is to treat humans as objects through manipulation. That's mistaken and harmful. Compassion doesn't mean you don't stand up to bullies or you don't resist injustice or you don't fight back in self defense. It means you're always seeking to humanize rather than dominate. This can mean supporting trans folks in accessing care or it can mean helping them to consider all their options.