It’s disgusting that homosexuality is seen as such an abhorrent thing in this day and age. Are all humans not capable of love? If the answer is a resounding yes, then why are we stopping consenting adults from expressing this? Because of some archaic scripture from thousands of years ago? Excuse my French here, Lebanon, but kindly get to fuck.
This is exactly why the separation of church and state is supposed to exist in democracies. The zealots will continue to take away your rights until morale improves.
I'll just mention that in the middle east the vast majority of people don't support LGBT rights. Bringing up the separation of church and state makes no sense in this context.
They don’t support those rights cause they have been brainwashed by their religion. Maybe if religion was removed from government, that wouldn’t be the case, at least not to this extent.
I am such a mental case that I worked for a company that designs and sells machines to make computer chips. I speak 3 languages, and when I got my superior driverlicense I could effortless use manual transmission. But I am still a mental case according to a “smart” American
As a gay man, these are my thoughts every single day. Do I not deserve love? Is some old book really more important than what’s happening now? I just don’t get it.
It’s not about the book, it’s not even about sexuality. Yes these are the justifications they use, but at the core it’s all about finding someone they can hurt, and they found you. The cruelty is the point.
This seems a bit oversimplified ? I am no scholar, but as far as I can tell it’s phobias all the way down : these islamic lawmakers (certainly not using the term muslim here as I reserve it to refer to decent religious people) don’t know shit about homosexuality, and as we know ignorance holds the door open for bigotry and hate. This quickly becomes self-perpetuating as gay folks have no way of changing that status quo without risking their lives, and become invisible in these societies. I would say it’s about difference, and difference in sexuality certainly
Seems China is always in Crisis according to Western news. The consequences seem to not be there though.
Instead wages increased threefold within ten years. It is funny that the Isle of Man got the most searches for “china crisis”, I would guess cause it is a tax haven and therefore sensitive to such “news”?
Without joking, China did manage to succeed through ten crisis and you can read Wen Tiejun’s book about it
Today: a weatern basement-dweller furiously defends a murderous authoritarian regime, while eating a burger and shit-posting on the world-wide(almost)-web.
What is it with lemmygrad weirdos and telling people to go touch stuff? Lemmy isn’t the authoritarian, murderous regime of china, I’m free to do as I please.
Touch grass, you project stronger than the Leica Cine 1. If the admins would do your job your comment would be deleted already. Click my link, does that look like there are often news about crisis that don’t come to fruition? Sure does. Do you disagree with the book you can receive from Springer Link?
While property dealings can have effects (look at my link at see at 2008/9 how impactful the financial crisis from the US was even for China), the article doesn’t manage to break beyond the general sentiment. Articles like that are often followed by high noise low signal comments which mirror sentiment of the user base, in this case mostly US dwellers that are underemployed. So a bit Sinophobia is expected, likely with topics related to property, so “Ghost cities”, “expropriations”, “shady construction” while using standards the people don’t actually hold up in regards to their own countries.
Their population demographics are a problem that is going to be much harder to manage. If they succeed, good on them for figuring it out. But they’ve managed because they’ve had fresh population to feed into their economy. That is NOT going to happen going forward. So they better change their strategy.
Honestly, I hope they do for the sake of the human beings living on that piece of earth currently ruled by the CCP. I actually wish them no ill will and the rest of the world is likely to suffer if china has a full on collapse.
The buses were hours late picking students up to go to school, and late picking them up from school after it was out.
All this shit isn’t a “worker shortage” either. Our economy is fucked from unrelegated capitalism, they’re offering $22 to drive buses, but I’d be surprised if drivers qualify for full time and benefits. Even if they do, not many want to split their day in half to drive pickup and drop off
they’re offering $22 to drive buses, but I’d be surprised if drivers qualify for full time and benefits
Ya, this is what I’d be curious to know about. $22/hr is pretty good. But, if that only comes with 4 hours a day, no healthcare, and a split schedule, it’s a lot less attractive. $22/hr at 4 hours per day would be $22,880 per year. And it’s less than that once you figure in holidays and not working much of the summer. So, anyone working as a bus driver is probably also working a second job. Trying to deal with the split schedule is going to make that second job harder, to the point that it makes more sense to try and pickup a full time job at a lower wage. Even making $10/hr at 40 hours per week, you’d make $20,800. That’s probably on par with what a bus driver makes for a year at $22/hr. A full time job also would likely bring with it health insurance.
Unfortunately, the solution is largely going to mean more money. Hiring the drives as full time, with pay equivalent to 8 hour shifts (even if split) and benefits won’t be cheap. And with the training and licensing requirements for bus drivers, the pay needs to be enough above other options available for people. I’d also look for a solution which involves training people and getting them licensed, rather than expecting them to walk in with those on day 1. From a coldly economical point of view, the people you expect to fill this role are not rich and may not have the resources to get trained/licensed as a bus driver on their own. Even if the training is fully paid for, people may not be able to take the time for the training. So, you’d likely need to pay them something, probably a lower wage, while they are a trainee with the expectation that they get the full wage/benefits package once they finish training and take a job with the county. This would come with amortized repayment requirements if they leave before some fixed period (e.g. two years).
There is also the issue of working conditions. I love my kids, I don’t universally love all kids. Some of them are absolute shitheads. And bus drivers have to deal with 20-30 kids while trying to operate a multi-ton machine. And let’s not forget the “fun” of dealing with parents when little Todd gets in trouble for smearing shit on the seat. There needs to be an administrative system supporting the drivers. And many school boards are so gunshy about being sued, that the driver is likely to find themself under the bus they used to drive at the hands of the school board.
Needing fewer urban and suburban bus drivers frees up drivers to service rural areas. In any case the vast majority of students live in urban and suburban areas.
They also need to get more creative with who they are hiring and what “benefits” they are offfering. A split schedule like that sucks for someone looking for anything more than part time work. If they can come up with benefits that attract say, stay at home parents looking to make some extra money, that particular split in the schedule may not be so bad for them. But they would also likely need other non-traditional side benefits that full time workers in other jobs might not, like the ability to bring younger children (not yet in school) to work with them on their route. A benefit like that might bring in more drivers and not even cost the company anything but too many places are stuck in a traditional workplace mindset.
From the area. The issue is state funding for transportation is down 84%. As a result what was 950+ bus routes for 96k students has been shortened to 550ish routes this year. It is a combination of drivers leaving for other jobs to no money to incentivise people who can work at the major ups here for double/triple the pay.
The smaller amount of routes for the same population means they had to do something different. This year they used an AI routing program to “optimize” the transportation which has led to longer routes (thus more variables), the crazy amount of start times, and busses having to hit multiple schools in a single run (3-4 on avg). The district is telling us they didn’t configure the AI properly while the drivers are saying during practice runs the last couple days, with zero kids on board, they haven’t been able to be within an hour to 90 minutes of their final mark.
There’s a lot more fine details leading to this but it’s all become one big cluster. School is already cancelled Monday and Tuesday also and there was a distinct lack of staying Wednesday+ wasn’t off the table.
Oh … Because of money and federal regulations they don’t have gps. The drivers literally have something printed out like the days of MapQuest.
Anyways just wanted to clear up some stuff.
Source: local, went through JCPS, coached in it, have a kid in it
Again, it has been screenable for decades. Just like many other blood-borne diseases. Why single out HIV as if it is impossible to filter out of the supply?
Why single out HIV as if it is impossible to filter out of the supply?
Screening accuracy is lightyears better today than it was decades ago.
Also, many things on the screening test won’t kill you in the event of a false negative on screening. A false negative for HIV screening meant a certain death sentence for the recipient, and that was true until just a few years ago.
Why single out HIV
HIV never was ‘singled out’. There are numerous other behaviors and activities that disqualify a potential donor that have nothing to do with HIV.
“Singled out” implies that that it stood alone as the only behavior that was screened for. But that’s not the case. There always have been and still are numerous other behaviors and activities screened for and denied.
No, ‘singled out’ means they made a special exception for it that they made for nothing else. They didn’t even ask if you had HIV, just if you had gay sex, as if you can’t get HIV from heterosexual sex. It was never about HIV, it was about marginalizing gay people once again. And you’re excusing it. Shameful.
They made special exceptions for people who live or travel to specific regions, they made special exceptions for people who have received certain medical procedures, they made special exceptions for needle-based drug users, they made special exceptions for people who’ve gotten tattoos or piercings, they made special exceptions for other sexual behaviors like paying for sex. You do know what the definition of the word “singled” means, yeah? It means “single” - as in “one”. They didn’t single out just that one behavior.
Yet again- they only asked if you had gay sex. They didn’t ask if you had sex. HIV can be transmitted through any kind of sex. Are you really not aware of that? Because if you are aware of that, why just ask about gay sex?
It’s a bit more complicated than that. In the early years of the HIV epidemic they at first didn’t even want to screen donors. The blood banks and the FDA were slow to introduce screening for a few reasons, one being that gay men were such good donors that a large proportion of the blood supply would have been removed. Eventually the risk became too great and do screening was introduced, just like we exclude those who were in Britain when TSEs were a risk. Note that these restrictions also never applied to lesbians, because they are not a high risk group.
40 years ago contracting HIV was still a serious, life threatening event. It’s also true that in the USA homosexual men represented one of the largest risk groups, unlike in Africa where other factors made spread between heterosexuals more common. It took hold in the gay male community due to the higher risk of anal sex, the popularity of bath houses, and the amount of sex men were having basically. Testing for HIV was also expensive. You could do it at the batch stage to reduce testing, but then you throw away a lot of blood. It’s only recently that PreP is widely available and used, so that HIV is more manageable (though it is still a serious illness).
My source for most of this is And The Band Played On, which apart from being one of the saddest books I ever read, outlines well the inaction by politicians, medical funding bodies, and even within the gay community itself, in tackling the epidemic. That it was allowed to happen is a black mark on the Reagan presidency.
A false negative for HIV screening meant a certain death sentence for the recipient, and that was true until just a few years ago.
Are you for fucking real? Don’t pretend it’s not still a life shattering disease.
You can’t just say, “oh well, it’s not as bad as it used to be.” There’s a vast spectrum between “it won’t kill you” and “it’s a total nothingburger” (wow, does that ever sound familiar). Now you’re immunocompromised, something you definitely do not want in this day and age. Now you risk passing it onto partners and children. Now your quality of life is degraded decades earlier than it otherwise would be.
Now imagine you contracted it, not because you voluntarily engaged in behaviors and you knew the risks, but because you received life-saving medical care. Then imagine learning it might have been prevented if the organization responsible was concerned with pandering to sexual identity politics than ensuring product safety.
This is, and has always been, about safety. Screening has improved. Research has provided more data on prevention and monitoring. They wouldn’t have changed the policies otherwise.
So…you agree with my position that Red Cross had good reason for the ban for the past several decades but choose to attack me because my argument wasn’t vicious enough? I think you arguing with the wrong person here, tbh.
Shit, you know what, I think I may have over-interpreted your phrasing to mean that HIV is no big deal because it’s no longer a short term death sentence.
They phrased it “men who have sex with men” because that was - and is - undeniably a huge risk factor in the transmission of HIV. It was an unprecedented public health emergency and I don’t think people nowadays quite understand how severe it was. Which is great, really, we’ve come such a long way.
Communication infrastructure was nothing like it is today either, there was a real absence of information and people were extremely scared, especially gay men watching their friends die. A blanket ban was the only sane thing to do in the circumstances.
Did it need to persist so long, perhaps not, but even 20 years ago AIDS was much less preventable and treatable than it is today. And the gears of bureaucracy turn extremely slowly at the best of times.
As someone else has pointed out, this is far from the only group excluded from the donor pool. It’s not a moral judgment, just a screening heuristic at the demographic level. That’s how things have to operate at the level of public services; i.e. population-level policy.
I agree. As I said in another comment, the book And The Band Played On is a great history of the AIDS epidemic in the USA and really hammers home just how devestating it was to gay men. It’s a fact that gay men are the major risk group in the West for HIV transmission. Heterosexual sex is much less likely to spread it compared to anal sex. There was a lot of mismanagement of it, but screening was a good idea, when it was finally introduced.
Not really, it specifies “new partners,” which is completely fair. People lie, and it allows time for symptoms to show up so the red cross doesn’t end up wasting resources. I don’t really know how they’d work out polycules unless they add a monogamous restriction. The three months it’s about safety since they are dealing with blood.
Theoretically, it applies to everyone. The anti-sodomy laws also technically applied to everyone, but were only enforced against the LGBT community.
It is good that now they will at least screening those who have heterosexual intercourse, but most MSM still won’t be able to donate with the various restrictions. Only MSM in a long-term relationship will be able to donate.
I can understand the biological reason for not allowing certain medications to avoid complications. However, they could still take blood and just keep it separate just as plasma centers that take MSM plasma do. If there really is a shortage, they should be taking everything being offered.
For a lot of these people their (secular) religion is erasing real-world group differences. The fact that you can (whatever your sexual orientation) regularly engage in anal sex, and therefore be at a higher-risk of contracting STIs for physiological reasons, and therefore not be eligible to donate blood—and still be a good person is beyond their ability to square.
If we value your personhood equally then there must be no substantive physiological differences between you and anybody else.
Yes, it’s entirely about what you do, not what you are. Nothing to do with identity, only practice. This seems to be very hard for younger people to grasp, because increasingly society seems to conflate the two. That’s not particularly meant as an accusation, just an observation.
Even if it was the case, what's wrong about homosexuality? Who the fuck cares who fuck who? We have one life. Let people live like they fucking want. End of the story, end of the argument. If there's a god, let that god be the judge of it. The rest is none of your god damn business
As a Muslim I can understand arguments stemming from liberalism, but this one makes no sense. Islam is pretty clear about what should be done with known homosexuals, and leaving them alone isn't it. Again, I can understand not agreeing with the principle from the start, but the "let God deal with it" is illogical.
It's not even about "liberalism" or "conservative" mentality. It's just common sense really. How the fuck does homosexuals hurt you in any way? Nothing. They don't hurt anybody. They cannot magically turn you gay, you are born gay - or not. That's all. Now this will never stop being a thing. It was a thing 25,000 years ago, it will be a thing in 25,000 years from there, it's a thing in the animal kingdom, it's not a disease you can transmit, nobody ever turned gay at 40 years old like "sheesh fuck vaginas, I like penis now". Like what the fuck? If you are against homosexuals, you are pretty much against whatever god your parents told you to believe in, because it's natural. It's a creation of said gods.
The more people figure that out, the faster we can actually focus on real issues that ARE actually affecting us all; economy, inflation, climate change, job crisis, pandemics, heat waves, hurricanes, healthcare, etc. THOSE ARE REAL CONCERNS IN THE REAL WORLD.
Drop the fucking stupid bullshit with gays, lesbians, abortions and religions, those are all non-issues that doesn't matter in the end. This isn't 1532, we are in 2023 for fuck sake
It's not even about "liberalism" or "conservative" mentality. It's just common sense really. How the fuck does homosexuals hurt you in any way? Nothing. They don't hurt anybody.
Yes, that's what I meant by liberalism. The idea that as long as you don't harm people around you you should be allowed to do whatever, also called the harm principle. Anyway, I'm not here to debate moral systems; just saying that the attempt I replied to was weak even if you agree with the conclusion.
It was a factor in my leaving my birth faith. Seeing the differences between what the books said and how people acted and the how modern morality didn’t match up with the books.
Morality, like everything else, evolves. Religions try to freeze it in a fixed place. Fetishizes the past, making the living enslaved to the dead. Mohammed and Jesus and Moses and the Buddha are to be perfect people for us.
As long as you’re being consistent. But sadly, I don’t think that’s possible. I wish people could just use their heads instead of following some dumbshit set of rules written thousands of years ago, but unfortunately it’s not really gonna happen.
It’s the new crusades- they can’t kill you, but they can make sure you can’t do anything they don’t like because of their religion, even if it kills you.
Religion was, and still is, about power and control over others. Observant people in the past noticed that homosexuals didn’t produce as many (if any) children compared to others. Less children means less bodies for your army. A smaller army means less power. Less power means less control. Therefore religions focused on power and control hate homosexuals.
No one hates Jesus and his teachings as fiercely as a Christian. Christians would be the firsts in line to crucify Christ for his hippie, soft ideas again if he were to resurrect, this has been known for centuries.
I have a 20 year old t-shirt that says “If Jesus comes back we’ll kill him again” on it in tiny white script. People always thought it was a statement of my intentions but it was always just a comment on society.
Reminds me of the South Park ep Hare Club for Men, when Bill Donahue, of the Catholic League (read: assholes with persecution complex), says to kill the Jews (Jesus was Jewish). Jesus wasn’t hardline enough.
That’s simply not true. A truthful statement is that these people were never Christians. They flew the Christian flag because it lent them credibility and control. But it has been a long time since we’ve seen any Christian values from the loudmouths we see in the news claiming to be Christians. Actual Christians aren’t the people you see on the news. I know a few and they’re great people who do a lot for their communities and the people around them.
A truthful statement is that these people were never Christians.
This is like the most very basic “No True Scotsman” that you can do.
These people are Christian, whether you like it or not. You don’t get to decide that they aren’t. All Abrahamic religions and their holy books are full of awful awful stuff. And no, not just the Old Testament.
If you’re not at least attempting to follow the teachings of Christ, then you’re not a Christian. Just calling yourself something doesn’t make you that thing. I can say I’m a Rock Star until I’m blue in the face, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not even musical.
Not a true Scotman. Read a history book. Christians have been beheading, slaving and murdering people ever since Constantine converted in his death bed. It was never about being a good Christian in the eyes of God. Religion has always been about power.
I believe you have some serious misconceptions about how bankruptcy works but I don't really have the time to explain it to you. The gist of it is that it's not that simple and is certainly not guaranteed for everybody.
And never ever again be offered any kind of credit product. You might not even be allowed to open a bank account or invest money. Say goodbye to ever having the THOUGHT of owning a house.
Iirc this fine started at $50k and each day of noncompliance. Another fine 2x the size of the prior days fine was added.
So noncompliance for another day would have cost another $400k, then $800k, then $1.6m, and so on. By day 30 of noncompliance, the fine would be over $5 billion.
Building ghosts cities to hold 30 million people and then not filling them. Who would have thought that’s not a valid strategy for property management?
Your propaganda is a decade out of date. If you actually read the article, the current issue is that a lot of people aren’t receiving the housing they prepaid for.
Aside from that, I’ll take “too much housing” over the hell world of trying to find a place to live in the US any day of the week. The ghost cities complaint always seemed like coping to me.
You are correct, the “ghost city” claim is about a decade old and in the time since then good functioning cities developed incorporating those infrastructure and urban resources built previously.
Zhujiang New Town for example can house up to two million people (often moving out from the 7-10 million living in the old areas) and while I dislike the urban planing of it, it was once among the foremost called “ghost city” in propaganda, yet it is larger than most cities in most states of the US as example.
I also agree that having too many flats seems to not be that bad a problem to have. Especially when 2‰ of the US are unhoused - even though there are millions of empty flats.
Right up until the demand for housing turns flat and then negative due to unquestionable demographic realities facing China. When such a huge percentage of the populations net worth is tied to real estate, the impact of a housing crash can’t be ignored. And there is a storm coming, the numbers don’t lie. In the next 20 years China’s population WILL shrink
The numbers will sink in the next 20 years for pretty much all “developed” OECD countries. Including the US, UK, France, Germany… yet how often do you personally write about that problem? When even people like professor Reich of Berkeley mention the 40(?) trillion $ wealth transfer due to shrinking population and that mostly to a small group of population with reduced demand for housing you seem to focus a lot on a country you are not living in.
Do I think China faces challenges? Surely. Do I think the capitalist market oriented parts of it will lead to problems that are integral to capitalist market systems? Sure. The CPC has much more power to act on it though. China is currently able to house its population much better than 30 years ago after the crisis of the fall of the Soviet Union. Germany’s capital is missing 600k affordable flats at the same time.
Lets see how things will play out, but similar articles were published every couple of months for the last 20 something years. That generates sentiment.
The difference between those OECD countries is that they allow migration. Nationalistic and racist temper tantrums notwithstanding, those countries are bolstering their working age ranks with migrants. China is distinctly anti-migration. So they’ve been digging a giant hole that’s going to take a LOT to fill. And they haven’t even stopped digging yet (first rule of getting out of a hole!)
So, could China change that stance as a way to mitigate the issue? Sure. But they better up their human rights record or they are only going to attract the most desperate of migrant with no other options. That doesn’t bode well for a strong economic engine. Though cheap exploitable labor does help [shrug]
Their housing market is still unaffordable for Chinese citizens. Rather be in an unaffordable housing market where I get what I pay for. Like the house, that I’m typing this in. Which I paid for, and then got the keys to.
Some are, but not all. The point here is building entire towns or entire new city sectors in one fell swoop instead of planning them out and building them in stages so plans can be adjusted as needs inevitably change is a bad idea. It’s things like this that have directly led to the current property market crisis.
Of course if buildings are already there it makes sense to use them, but they might have been able to put something better suited or more economically viable there if they had staggered the construction.
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