I read the comic as referring to adblocking software as opposed to any specific extension. I can’t pinpoint what gives me that idea though so who knows
I don’t get it why spend lots of money to have some fancy logo on a plain coloured shirt made by Chinese children, when you could get the same thing without the logo for under $10. I guess it’s a status symbol
Picking up wild animals which would much prefer to be left alone, so you can get your picture taken, is not loving them. Keeping animals in cages so you can have something on your shelf to look at, is not loving them. Most animal ownership is possession for the possessive, masquerading as caring.
I feel like I’ve seen this take a lot more in the past ~5 years than I did before. Not just that zoos are unethical, but that any animal ownership (or really interaction of any kind) is inherently abusive.
You’re certainly entitled to feel however you want about animal ownership and act accordingly, but personally I feel like it’s honestly kind of a weird take?
Humans are obviously not the only species that develops symbiolotic relationships with other organisms (in a diversity of power dynamics), but we are also not the only species who take on specifcally ownership or shepherd roles for other species (like spiders with frog pets, or fungus farmer ants, among many many other examples). Thus, the ontological position this opinion must operate from is that humans are somehow distinct and superior to nature, such that we have separate and unique responsibilities not to engage in mutualistic ownership with other organisms, on the basis that like, we’re somehow “above” that? That we’re so enlightened and knowledgeable that we exist in a category of responsibility distinct from all other organisms?
Of course, a lot of our relationships to animals can be described as harmful in other terms without needing to take this specific stance. Like, our relationship with many agricultural animals can be critiqued through the harm done to their individual well-beings and through the harm their propagation does to the global environment. Or irresponsible pet owners can be critiqued for how their unwillingness to control the reproduction or predatory abilities of their pets can harm local ecosystems, like an introduced invasive species might. Or valid criticisms of many zoos when they prioritize profits over animal welfare, rehabilitation, ecosystem restoration, and education. Or that the general public picking up wild animals is a problem because it disturbs their fragile ecosystems and traumatizes them, especially when done on the large scale of human populations (but distinctly not for ecological study, wild animal healthcare, education, etc., like Steve Irwin et. al) But none of these are specific criques of the mutualistic ownership relationship itself as much as problems with the way we handle that relationship.
Idk, I’m interested to understand your opinion, especially if it has detail I’m missing beyond “we shouldn’t have pets, zoos, or farms because we’re better than that”!
It’s a reference to Roy Batty from Blade Runner. I didn’t know the name Batty Koda so I looked it up and I had completely forgotten about that movie lol
I know you meant this as a funny reply, and I’m sure your cat is very well taken care of.
…but I want to point out that the argument against pet ownership is more about the millions of animals in puppy mills, or on the streets, or abused by breeders, or bred with genetic issues for the sake of purity of breed. Your cat was extremely lucky to be adopted by you. But so many other cats are not. So many other cats die in shelters, or on the streets, or from euthanization, or in breeding mills. We create and fund the system that brings the unlucky cats into existence, for our own benefit.
The argument is that all those millions of cats and dogs that suffer and die so we can choose a few of them to pamper as pets, is not worth it.
Your cat isn’t an abuse victim. But all the other cats who weren’t so lucky, are.
Plus animal abuse is incredibly hard to discover: because animals cannot go to the police and report their owners. Lol. They don’t have voices. That makes them incredibly easy victims to exploit. Humans as a whole are really a hard group of people to trust with such vulnerable creatures, ngl.
My most charitable interpretation of you bringing up that spiders have frog pets is that, because pet-ownership is a thing that other animals do, it’s okay/natural for humans to do them too. And if we argue that it’s not okay for humans to do it, it must be because we think humans are inherently superior or something. Hopefully it’s accurate because that’s how I understood you.
This leads me to say:
The difference between us and other species that develop ownership/shepherding/symbiotic/whatever relationships with other creatures, is that humans can conceptualize morality. (inb4 the “morality is subjective” line: yeah, it is. But if you agree that suffering, torture, etc is a bad thing then we’re on the same page here axiomatically.) Unlike spiders, or farmer ants, we understand that causing other creatures to suffer is wrong. Because we are smart enough to understand, we have the responsibility to act in accordance with that understanding.
Another point is: male lions kill the cubs of other lions. Dolphins rape each other. Rats eat their own babies sometimes. Cats play with the mice they catch before killing them. The natural world is full of animals doing horrific things to each other. If you are going to say that it’s okay for humans to keep pets (or whatever) because animals do it/it’s natural… why can’t humans kill and eat their own babies? It’s because we know causing others to suffer is wrong, and therefore hold ourselves to a higher standard. We ARE superior: in the sense that we’ve invented philosophy and morality. That’s not a weird take. And it’s not a take that’s incompatible with this argument.
Similarly, we don’t hold our own children accountable for their crimes to the same degree we hold adults. If a kid steals money, or beats someone up, our society doesn’t punish them the same way as an adult. Because we understand that their brains have not yet developed the capacity to fully understand empathy. To truly be responsible for the suffering they cause.
Animals are, a lot like human children in that sense.
Therefore, we totally can “exist in a category of responsibility distinct from all other organisms.” We literally already do when it comes to things like murder, rape, and torture. Why not add distressing and frightening animals to take photos with them, or keeping them in cages, or what have you; to the list of things we should take responsibility for?
On “mutual ownership”. I’m not convinced that anything, whose agency has been removed through confinement, can be said to have equal weight in the decision to be owned, and thus be claimed “mutual”.
You give evidence of our like behavior with other animals, and claim that my position MUST operate from the belief of our “difference and superiority”.
Consider the inverse: Humans are not distinct and not superior. Therefor, all animal behavior is acceptable human behavior, for we are not but animals.
Its not exactly the society most would want to live in. People can and do use animal nature as means to justify horrible behavior. “Its a dog eat dog world, the villain proclaims”, as if the only surprise is that their victim would have expected it any other way. Mantises devour the male after copulation. Why then do you demand I not do the same?! Pointing to the way things are in nature as a means to find justification for human behavior doesn’t seem to lead to a useful foundation for ethics; maybe it even to to its dissolution.
So yes, I think we’re different. I think that in many ways our difference comes from our responsibility of stewardship. Because we do have knowledge, agency and control to the degree that we can destroy or restore environments.
This reminds me in broad strokes of the thesis of Sakai’s Settlers, which is roughly contemporary. In the introduction Sakai similarly calls out social sciences like “African American studies” and “Asian American studies” for what they are, the societal position and historiography of these peoples from the perspective of the white settler. Settlers thus aims to discuss the white settler in similar terms, ie. as the subject of such “science.”
Honestly, I’m not against ads, I understand that a site with free articles needs to pay the bills somehow. The reason I use ad block is that online ads have become so intrusive that it makes websites unusable, and the way they track you is way over the line. If ads didn’t completely destroy the experience of reading a website and were reasonable in the data they collected I probably wouldn’t bother with ad block.
When I just used a browser ad blocker I made a point to unblock sites that I wanted to support and didn’t use obnoxious ads. Unfortunately for them I now use a network ad blocker too and it’s more of a hassle. One of these days I might make a list of domains to unblock but at the moment I’m more concerned with figuring out how to block YouTube ads at the domain level.
Afaik, they are unblockable. They are served from the same domain as the video, so if you block them you can’t see the video either.
Instead of blocking it at the domain level, you can install adblockers on almost any platform. I recommend uBlock for Firefox and ReVanced for Android. ReVanced is also supposed to work on Android TVs, iirc.
Assuming you don’t mind microG, with revanced you can sign in and have access to more of the bells and whistles. Otherwise, newpipe is great, and it’s more than YouTube. It handles bandcamo and other services too
ReVanced is a modded YouTube (and others) app. IE normal YouTube but you fuck with it locally to skirt what got the original Vanced guys. Adblock, OLED black theme same old thing Vanced provided. I’ve used NewPipe very little but I’d summerise a comparison as ReVanced has better user experience (thanks to Google making the app) and you can sign in/get notifications ect
I’ve just been following community guidelines, which is to change the title of a post from “Name That Song” to the song title when someone guesses it. I see your point though. I’ll mention it to who runs it and see what they think.
Call sorry.next().value as many times as you need to baby, hell you can even use it in a for-of loop because Generator functions are Iterable. I fucking love JavaScript
Fun fact, Tank Man at Tiananmen wasn’t run over by a tank, and despite the event being called the “Tiananmen massacre” leaked US embassy cables say no one was shot at the square.
In 2009, James Miles, who was the BBC correspondent in Beijing at the time, admitted that he had “conveyed the wrong impression” and that “there was no massacre on Tiananmen Square. Protesters who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations with martial law troops [ …] There was no Tiananmen Square massacre, but there was a Beijing massacre”.
Western media also never seem to mention the dozen or so police officers who were killed and immolated before the repression started, somehow that’s irrelevant or something. Can you imagine how things would have gone if a dozen police officer had been murdered and burnt during the WTC protests in 1999, or BLM?
No, leaked official cables of the secret designation is not the same thing as an anonymous source. The secret designation only denotes that these cables were intended for people with a clearance level of secret (as opposed to say No foreign, Top Secret, etc). The cables authenticity leave no doubt and have been thoroughly investigated by journalists.
You can read these cables for yourself on WikiLeaks (I don’t know why the telegraph wouldn’t simply link to them).
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF EVENTS AT TIANANMEN SQUARE. ALTHOUGH THEIR ACCOUNT GENERALLY FOLLOWS THOSE PREVIOUSLY REPORTED, THEIR UNIQUE EXPERIENCES PROVIDE ADDITIONAL INSIGHT AND CORROBORATION OF EVENTS IN THE SQUARE. THEY WERE ABLE TO ENTER AND LEAVE THE SQUARE SEVERAL TIMES AND WERE NOT HARASSED BY TROOPS. REMAINING WITH STUDENTS BY THE MONUMENT TO THE PEOPLE’S HEROES UNTIL THE FINAL WITHDRAWAL, THE DIPLOMAT SAID THERE WERE NO MASS SHOOTINGS OF STUDENTS IN THE SQUARE OR AT THE MONUMENT. END SUMMARY.
my favorite part about these kinds of comments is that the article they commonly cite basically says there was no tiananmen massacre because the massacre happened outside of the square in the rest of beijing, and that’s treated like it’s some big gotcha
The fact that the official statements are decisively false is a gotcha yes. Why would you trust the rest of the reporting and official story when you know they lied about basic things like this. What makes you think that the number they throw around is anywhere close to reality when they can’t even tell you where the events happen?
It’s not like China even denies that people died.
You can look at the pictures I linked too, plenty of dead people in them. These are available from the Chinese state.
I’m less concerned about the specifics of where it happened and how many people died, and more concerned about how military personnel shot live ammunition at citizens.
According to the Tiananmen Papers, a collection of internal Communist party files, soldiers started using live ammunition at around 10.30pm, after trying and failing to disperse the crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Yes I know it’s crazy right, even the Chinese government doesn’t deny they shot people after at least a dozen police/soliders were killed and immolated and others taken hostage… In a similar situation, I am absolutely sure that the west would not use lethal force…
I don’t think you are proving the point you think you’re proving.
Not fifteen years before in the US the national guards shot at a group of 300 protestors who hadn’t been occupying the place for months, didn’t have Molotov cocktails, didn’t take hostages, didn’t immolate anyone. They killed four, and wounded nine.
lemmy.ml
Hot