For 4 Easy payments of 19.95 you too can get your shit pushed in by 31 different countries, with the added bonus of having someone else raise your children.
These guys are the fucking biggest idiots in the world. They don’t worry about being Russian and Chinese operatives, they only worry about losing votes because people found out they are. It’s the whole you only sorry you got caught, but on a traitor to your nation level.
“They” isn’t a thing there: Part of the party is perfectly happy with it, seeing especially Putin as a role model, the other is perfectly opposed to it, not really digging uppity Slavs threatening to nuke Berlin. Fallouts in parliamentary factions have been had, the word “traitor” has been employed.
We’re going to get fascism back purely because the neoliberal idea of fucking over everyone for the greater glory of the wealthy, while strip-mining brown people for every bit of value apparently has consequences.
Imagine how nice the world would be if we could have convinced the wealthy to make do with less?
If they only had a multi-party democracy in Germany, then there would be a progressive party which could attract a huge swath of votes. Instead they are stuck with only a center-right and a far-right party.
Every election the center-right says the progressives must vote for them to keep the far-right out of government, so there is never a chance for the true left to get representation!
If they had multiple parties the will of the people would be heard and a utopian society would soon emerge.
Third parties in the US will never be a reality without election reform. That in turn will have to be preceded by high voter turnout to push state legislatures more progressive.
AIPAC is dumping a boatload of foreign money on American elections aimed almost exclusively at eliminating progressives from both state and federal offices. Where is Hillary’s gang and their hand wringing about foreign interference?
In fact, there is no American-style majority voting system in Germany - as long as the elected party receives more than 5% of the vote in the federal election, it is represented in our parliament! …Nonetheless, Germany is struggling with exactly the same problem of right-wing / neo-fascist populism as basically every nation in the Western world at the moment…
For more reading on Germany’s political power / party dynamics, please have a look here!
Yes, I know this. My comment was a sarcastic broadside at all the people who think progressive causes are widely popular and only suppressed by neoliberals working in cahoots with fascists.
It’s much easier to do now. You should be able to do several in a single minute and the barrier to entry of using the software is way lower than Photoshop. Legally though, these seem indistinguishable.
They’re easier to create and more realistic. The prevalence and magnitude of an immoral act impacts how it should be legislated. Personally I don’t care if people make these and keep it to themselves, but as soon as you spread it I think it’s immoral and harassment and there should be laws to prevent it.
They’re not going to. There is an insane amount of entitlement around people’s jerk off material. Right here on Lemmy, I’ve seen someone (who denied being a child) call pornography a “human right” and groups of people insisting they should be able to openly trade images of child rape as long as they’re AI generated.
That sounds like an insane amount of entitlement from the one guy you found. Hopefully that entitles you to ignore everyone with even a fraction more nuance.
How dare I ignore the many subtle layers of nuance in “Using AI to create pornographic images of a woman and then sending them to her so she knows you’ve done it”.
and groups of people insisting they should be able to openly trade images of child rape as long as they’re AI generated.
“Be able to” in what sense? Morally and ethically? No, absolutely not obviously. But what would the legal reason be to make it illegal since no actual children were involved? If I paint an explicit painting of a child being raped, is that illegal? I don’t think it would be. It would certainly give people good reason to be suspicious of me, but would it be illegal? And would an AI-generated image really be different?
But what would the legal reason be to make it illegal since no actual children were involved
Prove it. Trawl through thousands and thousands of images and videos of child sexual assualt and tell me which ones were AI generated and which were not. Prove the AI hadn’t been set up to produce CSAM matching a real child’s likeness. Prove it won’t normalize and promote the sexual assault of real children. Prove it wasn’t trained on images and videos of real children being raped.
Legalising AI-generated child pornography is functionally identical to legalising all child pornography.
Legalizing or already legal? Because that’s my question. I don’t think it would be illegal, at least not in the U.S. I can’t speak for other countries, but here, proving a negative in court isn’t a thing.
I think porn generation (image, audio and video) will eventually be very realistic and very easy to make with only a few clicks and some well crafted prompts. Things would just be a whole other level that what Photoshop used to be.
I think burkinis are dumb, personally, but I don’t give a damn what people wear. This is just typical ingroup-outgroup postering fueled by a proto fascist government, standard stuff really. Also, hygiene? Bro, it’s the ocean, a layer of clothing extra ain’t gonna make a difference.
Saying burkinis are dumb is a really dumb thing to say.
For some bucket hats are dumb, but some people wear them. Not your place to judge. Also, it allows people of certain believes to have an equal access to commodities like going to a beach and go for a swim in a public.
In this regards, I would say, they are pretty smart.
Burkinis are absolutely a human horror that contradict every advamcement of women emancipation. They are the symbol of a society of apartheid in which women have fewer rights than men. But yes, people should be allowed to wear whatever they want, including nothing if it is their choice.
If somebody is forced (!) to dress in a specific way, that’s wrong. But if somebody chooses (!) to wear them for religious reasons, who am I to judge that?
My point is, there is nothing inherently wrong with burkinis - the context in which some individuals are wearing them might be wrong.
I 100% agree with you, that nobody should be forced to wear something that they don’t want to.
if somebody chooses (!) to wear them for religious
Not how totalitarianism works. How many Germains chose to be nazis un the 1930s? How many Russians chose to be communists in the 1950s? Totalitarian is a force that negates individual choice with a set of rules, anathemas and violence, with the ultimate objectve of a uniform society where everybody adheres to the exact same ideology. Burkinis are one of the tools used to enforce said ideology.
You called them a human horror. What person calls something a human horror and proceeds to do anything but advocate for a ban? What we can do is acknowledge that burkinis were created for one purpose and now people are using them for sun protection and/or personal comfort almost as much as religious suppression. Acknowledging nuance is ok, we don’t need to try to force everything to be so black and white.
What you wrote doesn't actually matter, all the rest of us can see is:
"WHaAAa!!1 wheN WilL IT bE mY TurN To hAraSs WoMEN wHO HuRt NO onE bUt mY TINy YEt mASSiVElY overinfLATEd frAgIlE eGo"
So you can pretend to care about women all you like, but when your only argument is that you want to be the one controlling them and dictating what they wear, not those other men, you're never actually going to fool anyone in the believing you. 🤷♀️
This.
Also, these men trying to dictate what women wear never seem to consider just how uncomfortable they make us in public spaces and that many (of all, if any religion) choose to cover up to avoid their gaze (as well as other reasons). They also never seem to have an issue with nuns.. 🤔🤔🤔
Catholicism had its fair share of totalitarian rules. Europeans fought back for 200 years in order to free themselves from their freedom suppressing ideology. Nuns attire serves the same purpose of oppressing women and I holdbthemnin the same contempt.
Of course it doesn't, because that would involve @henrivolney, a man throwing a tantrum over women choosing to wear a bathing suit, being capable of critical thinking.
In a way they do. Their costume is a way to say that they put their life under the authority of a fictional character. The difference is that monks, Christians, Buddhists or Muslims, live apart from society in monasteries. Hidjabs and burkinis are a way to separate women on a daily basis among their secular peers, inside their social fabric.
As these things were invented and trademarked in Australia and nearly half of them are bought by non-muslims for exact that reason, it is indeed great marketing.
Of course, then why don’ men wear them, if burkas are not a tool to separate people based on their genders and establish a segregated society where people of different gendes have diferents rights?
If you are arguing that anyone should be able to wear whatever they want, regardless of gender or religion, I agree with you. But I know that’s not what you’re saying.
Are scarfs "freedom suppressing items" too? Beanies? A burkini is literally just a wet suit with an overskirt & hijab (although most diving suits also have head coverings). Comparing that to a burka is bonkers and you know it. The idea of something suppressing freedom that is worn out of their own free notion is completely ridiculous. Telling others what to wear is exactly the problem here, and that goes in both directions.
Oh okay sorry. I am thinking about getting a burkini or rash shirt/shorts now that the hole in the ozone is getting worse again, so I'm kind of focused on its practical properties.
No religion is demanding that women specifically wear scarfs or beanies. Denying that this mandate (burkinis and other items) is a religious one, wose ultimate purpose is to separate women from men is at least a denial, at most a support for totalitarian propaganda
What do you think a hijab is? The whole point of it is to be covered, not to be pedantic about it, like you are right now. The difference is whether someone dictates you to cover up, or whether you cover up on your own free will. And guess which one is freedom of choice?
A hidjab serves the same purpose as the burkini, to artificially differentiate women from men and create a segregated society where women have fewer rights. Individual choice or not, the end result is the same.
I’ve seen freedom of choice when a social group pushes their norm on everyone. Either you carve or you leave. This is a very powerful tool to impose norms on people, women particularly. What freedom of choice do you have when you are a 15 yo girl with parents, brothers, cousins, etc who tell you that you have to wear “modest” clothing (fuck that phrase by the way, are men modest with their shorts and t-shirts?)? Either you carve or you break with your social group.
Lmao. How is it freedom suppressing if they choose to wear it? Look, in my opinion all religions are made up nonsense anyway (especially Christianity) but people are allowed to believe what they want and as long as they’re not harming others then what the fuck does it matter? You make it sound they’re trying to force nonmuslims to wear their outfits, which they are not. Meanwhile, at least in the US, God is thrown in our faces every which way. It’s in our fucking pledge of allegiance. I’d say that’s much more freedom suppressing than some women wearing burkinis at a beach. Plus most muslims I’ve met are wonderfully open and lovely people compared to nasty bigots in Christianity.
I am not going to argue which religious group is better than the others. In my view, they all support fairy tales and want others to respect or even support these tales.
I'm sorry but it's silly to suggest that someone who chooses to buy an item of clothing is magically having their freedom suppressed by it. That's not how any of this works.
If we get a hot summer this year I will most likely wear a rash shirt or burkini. New Zealand and Australia have the highest skin cancer rates in the world, because we live next to the hole in the ozone.
The hole opened early this year, it will be bigger than usual.
They look like derpy wet suits. Although some are definitely worse looking than others.
Hygiene is indeed a weird argument when you swim in a giant fish toilet.
The hygiene part made me laugh, given the photo. That beach is full of children most likely peeing in the water and there's a container ship in the distance, discharging god knows what into the sea.
Someone whose swimsuit has a bit more material in it is not a threat.
Now that you mention it, I do myself, but not if there are people nearby.
That beach looks like a hellscape to be honest, there are just way too many people there. I bet the water has things like sticking plasters floating in it.
I just stay out of the sun. As an ignorant Italian in my youth I already caused who knows how much damage being taken to the beach by my parents all the time. I will cover up and wear a very large brimmed hat but mostly just stay indoors. Fuck cancer.
Hm, the US has indeed used tactics like this in the past. It’s not inconceivable that they could have a possible hand in this. I doubt it, and it doesn’t matter. Putin is still going to use it for his propaganda.
As a french person this is great because I had (and really still have) no idea that my data was being shared with one of these intermediaries. I am also unable to decide to stop interacting with them, as I don’t know which one my insurance provider uses, and I am unable to choose the insurance provider my work uses. Fun times. Good news is that the data leaked is bad, but stuff like “your social security number” is not as important in France as it is in the US. Still important, but it’s not an all-in-one identifier for everything, we have id cards for that :)
It’s bullshit that they’re being thanked for table scraps that the children had to slap fight over how many scraps are allowed…
Of course anything other than 100% gratitude would be touted by the shittier child for the rest of their life regardless of whether the scraps ended off starvation or not.
While true that the timing is shit, the amount is nowhere close to “table scraps” - this seems like it will legit be helpful, maybe even enough to turn the tide in Ukraine?
Also, it’s not like Congress fed its own and then waited months to feed the dog - rather, dinner for the entire family was delayed from the start of the fiscal year 2024 in October 1 until just a few weeks ago, involving the ousting of one Speaker of the House and almost doing so to the second as well. And now, this aid package for Ukraine may likewise finish the job of getting the Speaker kicked out, bc any time the government is “functional” is considered bad by some elements.
But the timing from passing the federal budget itself to passing this aid package is actually quite short. Yes it’s half a year late, but it did eventually happen, and the amount of aid is large, so is a “success” by multiple metrics, and all the more so given the opposition. If we do end up having a civil war as people like MTG are calling for, this may well be the last aid package that the USA ever manages to pass in the final stages of its democracy.
So imho we should take the win and be happy - we may not get to celebrate Congress doing routine activities like “passing budgets” very often in the future, even six months late.
A large amount of the money goes towards paying the DoD to replenish stuff for US stock they already sent, so while it’s not nothing it’s also not really 60 billion in practice.
We are going to need to do this again in a year because every delay extends the war and pushes Ukraine further from being able to regain the initiative. It’s the same way the delay on the F-16s crippled the effectiveness of last summer’s offensive by Ukraine. The US delayed and delayed until the window for the F-16s to be effective had passed and everything became entrenched again over the winter and thousands of Ukrainian reserves had been spent on a largely ineffective push.
It’s now spring, and the aid probably won’t really get there for months, so I foresee this stalling things yet again.
Zelensky is right to still kiss asses, but it’s got to be really frustrating to have your fate hang on the likes of doddering old fools and fanatical religious zealots.
There’s a lot we could unpack there - e.g. it makes me all the more glad that they passed this, since we’ve already spent it either way!?
One quick item: Biden has stated that the aid can be there this week. He was prepared to spring on this. As you already said, this package was mostly to replenish already-spent funds, not as much directly to push forward with new ones. Although with that replenished stamina, I would expect to see new pushes happen as well.
Another big item is that Ukraine is not a member of the EU or NATO. As such it is “entitled” to nothing - everything that is being offered is purely voluntary. So, compared to nothing, $60B USD is quite a lot? Hence why he is grateful, and rightly so.
Another is that the USA does not need to be the sole provider of this aid - not that I am glad for the pause, but given that it happened anyway, I was heartened to see other nations rise up and cover the slack. And now for the USA to join the right side of history - well, better late than never, and all the more so with an amount this big!:-)
As you pointed out, the biggest one is that there is a faction within the US government that looks to be wanting Ukraine to fail, or more precisely for Russia to win. If Trump “wins” the next election, one way or another (i.e. legally or… otherwise), the USA may even go so far as to join Russia against Ukraine?! But for now, even delaying that aid may hamper it enough for Russia to finish the job. Maybe. Even so, this particular aid package got passed. Come what may, this one is a success. It is as important to celebrate success as it is to call out failures - failing to do either is biased, and therefore wrong.
Speaking of, the USA may also fail one day, less due to direct Russian military intervention and more from an internal civil war. But not today, b/c again, come what may, this particular aid package got passed, whoo-hoo!:-)
The main problem is that most European nations essentially disbanded their military after the financial crisis. The European weakness has made it extremely difficult to deliver weapons so far. Thankfully the European war machine is now really picking up and is ready to take over in case of GOP shenanigans (unfortunately we are electing our own idiots and Moscow stooges so no guarantees ).
Russia can be smart… in some ways, sometimes (while also simultaneously dumb in others, as aren’t we all?:-P). e.g. wasn’t it 2025 that Germany was scheduled to eliminate its dependence upon Russian oil (or was it rather all?) for energy. Knowing this does seem likely to have influenced the timeline of events somewhat, seeing how in that regard at least (and some others) it was the perfect time to strike - i.e. if they had waited longer it would have become far more difficult?
And let’s be blunt: if they had managed to take over what they wanted in that “three-day” timetable as initially planned, wouldn’t Europe have simply let them have it? As we consider that, let us not kid ourselves here b/c this invasion has gone on for a decade at this point - Georgia, Crimea, the area west of Crimea, etc. - each time citing “no, I swear, this was all that I wanted, I won’t do this ever again, I promise”. So if EU nations are somehow shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED, that those leopards would not one day turn and eat THEIR faces off, then I don’t know what to tell them…
However, I was pleased to note how e.g. Germany quickly turned its economy upside down and started mass-producing weapons. They tend to be a very smart and technically-minded people, so I for one have no problems believing that it at least could have been a strategic move on their part to “not have weapons”, when they were not immediately needed, yet also be ready to start producing them at a moment’s notice when the need for such became apparent - as you pointed out.
Likewise but with very different factors involved, those nations physically closest to Russia may have wanted weapons yet been afraid of enraging the bear by having them? So what I am trying, probably ineptly, to say is that it may not “purely” be due to willful ignorance on behalf of every EU nation, to lay down those older-style weapons that cost a lot yet haven’t been necessary for literally decades. A better cost-to-benefit ratio may have been to invest in something like energy independence, so long as the military factor was covered at some very minimal level.
Plus technology changes so fast… as we are seeing live in Ukraine, “tanks” were not the big thing, especially as Russia heavily misused them at first, compared to drones, right? So EU nations were “not prepared”, in the specific sense, but by investing into robotics and batteries and such, the converse does not seem quite true either i.e. we cannot say that those same nations were not entirely “unprepared” either?
That is why it is so amazing that Ukraine is holding off Russia, essentially acting as the shield for the entire fucking world, making Russia expend all of its military might & resources upon it, which could otherwise be put to use elsewhere, into saving up and preparing for the next target, which they ofc according to Russa “we have no plans for, b/c Ukraine is all that we want, we promise”!
Ukraine really does deserve aid then - they’ve earned that. But… there are >100 Republicans who seem to believe rather that Russia has “earned” the right to take whatever they want. And that should worry us all, around the world.
I mean… that depends on what metric you are going by, I suppose.
Not by personal happiness, or by health outcomes, or “freedom”, or safety, or education, or (non-military) technology, or … well the list gets rather extensive.
To be fair, the USA did used to lead the world, e.g. being first if not to space then to the moon, and we sequenced the human genome, and computers were invented here, and there’s Hollywood serving up movies and culture all over the world, etc., so I am not knocking any of the past achievements. Notably, after WWII we did get a bit of an “uneven” start compared to countries like the UK that were bombed by Germany whereas the USA emerged fairly unscathed, and yet we took that headstart and really went for it! We indeed were the most successful country in the world - unquestioned by almost anyone.
However, lately… well, “the economy” is still booming, but most average people are going to die significantly sooner than their parents generation did, possibly by a terrorist event such as a school shooting that we have nothing whatsoever to try to stop, health outcomes are abysmal, and many millennials and especially Gen-Zers strongly doubt that they will ever be able to afford a home, seeing how homes have become “investments” rather than places to live in, colleges costs have quintupled, most jobs today for younger people are “temporary” positions in the gig economy, etc. etc. etc.
You do bring up a good point: compared to the rest of the world we still do have it pretty good, in some ways. It is just that compared to how we ourselves used to have it e.g. 50 years ago, we are doing significantly worse, relatively speaking.
Look at almost any list, e.g. the top 10 scientific discoveries, or engineering accomplishments, and America barely makes those lists anymore. Other nations with drive & heart like India or China are sacrificing so that they can outpace us. That’s fine I guess, they needed their turn:-). But at some point we should ourselves: what exactly makes us “successful”… these days?
You might think that I am one of those that hates America, but I do not think of myself that way, it is just that I am questioning our place and how it has changed over the years. Though perhaps I am simply paying attention to the wrong sources, so if you want to send me something to read or watch that answers that, I would like to learn. So far though, everything that I have learned lately ends up just depressing me b/c it at least appears to be a decay, and not just morally.
How much money do you think Ukraine is entitled? After this influx of “scraps”, the USA has contributed more in total dollars than the rest of the world combined. Here is a good source, keep in mind this data is from February and doesn’t include the latest funding: cfr.org/…/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-a…
This graph is only good through February as well and doesn’t include the latest aide packages from the US and EU. I found that the EU added another 50 billion euros in feb and the US another 57 just now. So I’ll adjust my statement, the US has given as much as the EU. The spirit of my original comment still remains. Why all the hate on here for a very generous aide package?
You’re right. Block all the funding. Wait, what will you do when China goes after Taiwan? And Russia goes after Poland and Scandinavia? There is historical precedent for your type of lunacy. Hitler was just going to stop with Poland, right?
You’re jumping to conclusions, I actually support the aide packages. What I don’t support is an attitude of entitlement and calling what is a very generous aide package “scraps.” Yes it came later than what would be ideal, but it came and will help.
We literally spent many trillions of dollars keeping the Kremlin in check during the Cold War. Helping Ukraine now is a marvelous bargain for us that will save us a far greater amount of money later.
AITA for allowing a person with mental illness claiming to be god be put to death?
I’ve (30M) been reflecting on a past decision I made and I could really use some outside perspective. There was this significant event involving a certain crucifixion, and I had a role to play in it. At the time, I was faced with a lot of conflicting pressures and I ended up not doing much to prevent it.
Looking back, I’m starting to wonder if I made the wrong call. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I can’t shake the feeling that I should’ve done more to change the outcome.
What do you think? Was I in the wrong for not taking a stronger stand against what happened, considering the circumstances? Your honest opinions would be greatly appreciated! 🤷♂️🙏
Did she check the control singer? If the control doesn’t say she’s a fascist, but the other one does, then it’s not a placebo but her actually being a fascist.
She needs to have character witnesses in her trial, maybe somebody from her party to testify that she doesn’t associate with outspoken fascists and defenders of fascists.
euronews.com
Top