My spouse struggled with a medical condition for years and was lucky to finally get a prescription for something that actually resolved the problem. The medication was expensive ($1000+ a month), but since we literally tried everything else, insurance would “let” it be covered.
Then I lost my job and had to move over to a new company’s insurance plan. And they won’t cover it.
The fact that your employment in the US determines what medical care you can get is absolutely bonkers.
A medication being more expensive usually indicates rarity. This means the instance of required coverage by insurance companies is also rare. The fact any medication, needed to mitigate the risk of simply being born, might not be covered by “insurance” is bonkers.
I think we need to start a new industry to take it to insurance companies every time they deny coverage. Bury them in complaints and legal actions. Go so hard on every case that they give in immediately upon seeing the letterhead.
My medicine is $1,500 a month without insurance. It’s a bipolar medication. It doesn’t indicate rarity, it indicates greed. They could easily sell it for half the price and still make money.
It’s important to keep in mind that this rarity is often artificial scarcity by the pharmaceutical companies. There are some conditions which are rare, but have treatments that have been available for decades now with generics on the market for years. They simply don’t produce much of those meds, even though it’s cheap to do so, in order to artificially inflate the market price.
Insurers are complicit in this scheme because they don’t push back on this practice at all. Without single payer, we have no negotiating force to get pharmaceuticals to produce drugs in an affordable way, so they can manipulate the market however they please. It’s absolutely depraved.
That’s their point. If I need to setup a production facility but there’s only demand for a thousand doses a year, then the long term capital costs are going to drive the unit price up.
But there’s also greed. Stuff that’s a dollar to make and a thousand dollars to use.
They did that to prevent people from being able to shop for insurance. They promote capitalism, but they suppress competition which is, in theory, supposed to be part of a “healthy” capitalist economy.
The ACA helped a tiny bit, but it didn’t go nearly far enough. And then they tried a zillion times to revoke even that.
It’s never been about healthcare, it’s always been about making a small number of people very wealthy.
Seriously. My wife lost her job because of medical conditions (depression and adhd) before we were married. Getting her treatment was part of why we got married
If you do it once, good for you. If you do it repeatedly, also good for you. But if you “used 510 times, and more than 7,400 gallons of gas were pumped for free”( in only a 7 month period), I don’t know what you expect. You’re going 2-3 times a day getting 14gal every time.
That should be the illegal part. Taking advantage of a loophole should not be illegal. Charging other people so that you can take advantage of the loophole, on the other hand, is a scam.
There it is. She got greedy. If she would have just minded her own business and not told anyone and kept it on the down low it would have probably never been figured out. Regardless, this is 100%. The business is responsibility and should not be blamed on anyone else.
That’s what we get for giving the Confederates Military burials instead of an unmarked mass graves for their murderous treachery in the name of slavery.
“Johnson embarked on a policy designed to restore the former Confederate states to civil government with maximum speed and a minimum disturbance of Southern institutions beyond the abolition of slavery itself,” writes historian Michael Les Benedict. “His policy placed former rebels in political control of nearly every Southern state and left Southern blacks to the mercies of the men who had fought so desperately to keep them in bondage.”
I dislike this. I’ve seen first hand what serious burns do to people, both in the immediate and long term. Imo, this is there should be no speech louder than this, but it just kinda gets an “oh, damn, really? Man. What’s on the next channel?” reaction. I dislike that people resort to this when they’re going to get ignored, and I dislike that it largely is ignored except for a fleeting moment of sensational headlines.
The problem is, as far as I see it, that this doesn’t change minds. Thousands of children are dead now. Unless you’re totally ignorant of that, in which case you will be totally ignorant of why he killed himself in this manner, it’s not going to make you suddenly care about Palestine when exponentially more dead children who didn’t die by their own hand will not.
The base’s Pavlovian rejection of anything said by an accused outsider has got to be one of the Republican party’s biggest real “achievements.”
Or maybe I’m giving them too much credit. Mixing simple “ill will towards others” with a dash of “confirmation bias” will produce a very similar result.
“The” achievement. It was enabled by humanity’s shitty heuristics and still developing (it will never get to develop, I don’t think) ability for longer term thinking.
It wasn’t hard to do, but they sure kept at it.
If we can’t fix it, if the world continues on a slide to shit, if it’s all doomed to a stupid end then I have but one desire:
That when the echelons at the top tumble alongside the rest of civilization, they try at the end, right at the very 11th hour to recall their rabid masses because they need them to listen…
Only to hear back “Fake news” as the rabid mass of blind hatred they built tumbles down their would-be world too.
It’s easy for far away things, even horrific things, to just seem like trivia with no real salience to our lives. A statement like this is meant to wake people up that caring about the victims of our foreign policy is something for Americans to do. We as Americans have some small input into the process by which our taxes fund a genocide. And even if we don’t, maybe famously “empathic” Joe Biden might spend a second thought on the morality of his actions.
Oh I’m sorry that self-immolation isn’t a magic “stop” button and movements and social change take time to play out. Claiming it was inconsequential is just fucking insanely ahistorical. Next up, “Rosa Parks’ protest had no effect on the Civil Rights movement because it took 9 years for the Civil Rights Act to be signed”.
I would say that’s a little different from a president saying it was a turning point and then the guy who followed him massively escalated the war.
If Rosa Parks did her protest, Kennedy never got the Civil Rights Act passed and Nixon went back to encouraging segregation until he had not choice but to promote civil rights, that would be an apt comparison.
Nope, they’re both stupidly ahistorical statements to make. Ending the war wasn’t even the target of the protest, just an arbitrary end result you say wasn’t achieved quickly enough.
It’s loud about the strength of this guy’s conviction but it provides no actual argument or information. I don’t think it’s cause to change one’s opinion about Biden’s foreign policy one way or another. In fact, I’d go further and say that it probably should be ignored as much as possible in order to avoid motivating other people to do the same thing.
I disagree. Fairly certain it got politicians attention. When your own soldiers are standing outside of your house setting themselves on fire it’s probably best to pay attention to the message.
You change your vote based on people killing themselves? Like if you are pro-choice and a pro-life person killed themselves, you would change your mind? Do you look up stats on the number of people on both sides who kill themselves and compare them? Do you think suicidal people are a good basis for a system of government?
If you do any of those things, you are not a normal voter. Voters do not care about that at all. It grabs attention, but just talking to your friend about who you’re voting for is much more persuasive. If you kill yourself people rightfully think you have mental issues.
I just saw the video some journalist posted (with the family’s permission) that she blacked out just before he lit the fire but she left the audio. I won’t speak of his conviction but I will say he did look determined. I do understand the actions of the police now though because before the fire he was approached and asked by the cop “may I help you” twice, while ignoring him. That is why the cop drew his weapon. Why he didn’t holster it after the fire started I don’t understand. Guess that’s what happens when we react before getting the full story.
the Secret Service officers and Metropolitan Police who were present at the scene watch for a full minute, saying, “May I help you sir?” and as he’s on fire scream at him to get on the ground, but do not otherwise engage. One cop appears with a gun drawn on the man after he collapses, still consumed by flames.
I’m not supporting the cop’s actions, but the guy was staggering around and was engulfed in flames. If he went and hugged someone like the EMS, there would be two people dead. I imagine he kept his weapon on him in case he decided to run towards someone.
It may not seem like a weapon, but when someone is on fire from gasoline and walking, they’re a clear and present danger to the people around them.
This is not an accurate recounting of the video. The “may I help yous” were over a second or two as he was trying to light himself, not a long period. The “get on the ground” started basically as soon as the fire lit and continued until he collapsed at which point the presumed speaker with the gun came on screen and continued to actively dance around the first responders trying to put Bushnell out so that his shot line would remain clear.
I didn’t mention any time period nor did I even mention the get on the ground because as I clearly said in my post which you didn’t read carefully, after the flames went up it was stupid that the cop still had his gun drawn.
“Imo, this is there should be no speech louder than this”
I really don’t know what you were trying to say there, but you managed to fuck it up so badly it makes no sense.
That’s an awfully rude response to not being able to extrapolate this from the quoted bit:
“A man felt so deeply that this was wrong, and so powerless to get the attention of anyone who could even consider doing anything to help, that he doused himself in gasoline and burned himself to death in public, leaving behind his family and everything he cared about. Maybe people should pay attention to such a strongly sent message, and consider whether there are valid reasons that someone might feel so strongly about this topic.”
This was an active duty servicemember. I share your pessimism that anything will change, but I don’t think Biden can NOT comment on this. That should at least drive awareness. I’m sorry I have nothing less hollow than that to offer.
This isn’t “Christianity”. And that’s not to defend the religion, but it is just one head of this Hydra, not the core of the problem. People in power are using hate and fear in whatever medium they can to consolidate and increase that power, casualties be damned.
This is exactly Christianity. Their book tells them to act this way and their shamans have been screaming for this conduct for twenty centuries. Every single Christian I have dealt with is about one bad day away from doing this and why shouldn’t they? The have skydaddy telling them that they will be forgiven for everything and that it is a good thing to oppress the LGBT.
Again, I’m not defending the religion, just saying that blaming one thing here is missing the mountain of other contributing factors. If we erased christianity and every other religion you want gone from the world, the hate and fear would still be there, as would the people manipulating that to benefit themselves.
Great metaphor, actually, since cancer is most often caused or exacerbated by something else. But you’re still missing my point by a mile. Keeping going after the symptom rather than the sickness, I guess. I’m sure that’ll solve everything.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful to those who you are replying to, but are you sure those are even regular people you’re talking to, and not bots?
Either they’re very fanatical and can’t see outside of their box, or they’re being intellectually dishonest in how they respond to you, seeming to miss your point that’s being expressed very well and straightforward.
Eh, I don’t think so. People (understandably) hyper-focus on religion, and Christianity in particular, and the terrible things done under them, and it can be hard to get them to view the larger scope of the situation.
This is exactly Christianity. Their book tells them to act this way and their shamans have been screaming for this conduct for twenty centuries.
Granted, I missed Jesus’s sermon on the hill, but I’m sure I would have heard something about him okaying bullying and killing good people just because they’re different.
Christian fundamentalists don’t have nothing in common with Jesus. They are fake christians. Jesus preached tolerance so many times. They fucking don’t get it that they ignore him completely.
Jesus didn’t exist. The fictional person in the Gospels preached a doctrine that his was the only way to salvation and all other ways lead to hell. That one does not have the right to basic sexuality, property, and what they say.
That is not any form of tolerance I have ever heard of. One the rejects freedom of religion, expression, sexual preferences, and possessions. What possible tolerance could there be in a world where a shaman can order you to only worship him, to hand over all your stuff, to love only whom he approves of, and only say what he wants you to say?
Ballsy of you to say that. I’d like to know what proof you have of that.
Honestly not saying that you’re wrong, but it’s really tired of people who say things with such certainty when they’re just pulling it out of one of their orifices.
The fictional person in the Gospels preached a doctrine that his was the only way to salvation and all other ways lead to hell. That one does not have the right to basic sexuality, property, and what they say.
Ballsy of you to say that. I’d like to know what proof you have of that.
Sure. Total lack of contemporary evidence, lack of all relics from his life, the inability of anyone to keep basic biographical details about his life straight, clear and obvious plagiarism from texts in wide circulation at the time, lack of a dynasty, and easier explanations for the scarce data that we have.
You could write Paul’s letters completely from just being told 2 things about Jesus and being familiar with Jewish and Greek writings. You could write the entire gospel of Mark with the letters and again some familiarity with the writings of the time. Matthew adds almost nothing. Luke-Acts just adds stuff about Paul.
Want the Euchrist? Guess what eating your god was a common mystery cult practice. Want a dead leader? All over Judaism start with the Maccabees. Want the last supper? Common fiction trope at the time. Want the Tomb? Again already in fiction. Feeding the multitudes and healing the sick? Easy, Elijiah.
That one does not have the right to basic sexuality, property, and what they say.
Being serious? All that stuff about giving up your property to charity, ripping your eye out instead of looking with lust, condemning people for not saying that he was lord?
Being serious? All that stuff about giving up your property to charity, ripping your eye out instead of looking with lust, condemning people for not saying that he was lord?
Yeah, I really am, honestly.
As I mentioned to you somewhere, I’m not a Christian.
So if you actually got proof that Jesus is a bastard please do so. Be specific about it and don’t just say something without any connotation about who’s saying it or where it’s cited from. Because from all the quotes you’ve been making I literally can’t touch tell which one of those are from Jesus.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.
The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’
But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire
The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
He is now the judge of a sinful world, and on His head is the crown of the sole ruler of earth. On His robe, dipped in blood, and on His thigh is written, “King of kings and Lord of lords,” and no one alive doesn’t tremble at the sight of Him.
This is all in there. NIV translation is what I used.
Chiming in here to say that generally you need proof of positive claims in a debate, rather than proof of negative claims. Claiming dragons are real requires evidence, claiming that they are not real, well, I mean, first you’d have to establish a definition of what dragons are, but mostly, it wouldn’t require evidence to claim they’re not real, because proving such a thing would be a feat an order of magnitude greater than proving they exist.
Chiming in here to say that generally you need proof of positive claims in a debate, rather than proof of negative claims.
I’m not asking him to prove a negative, I’m asking him to prove his firm assertion that Jesus did not exist.
My understanding is there’s no conclusive evidence either way, so when somebody states either one of the extremes, that he absolutely existed, or he absolutely did not exist, I want to know where their proof is coming from that allows him to say such a thing with such certainty, because I know the evidence is inconclusive (at least at the last time I took a look into it).
In any case, have fun with your debate.
I’ve actually blocked him at this point, so there won’t be any further debate. My first block on Lemmy actually, I try very hard never to do that.
Yeah I kinda brain farted on positive vs negative claims there, it always confuses me as to whether or not you can make a positive claim on a statement about how something doesn’t exist, and it’s more about, the most reasonable thing is to not really know for sure one way or another, and you’re actually making the negative claim against certainty. I dunno, confuses me still. On the rank, it would still make more sense to argue for a lack of a thing than for existence of a thing, right? Sort of along the lines of the raven paradox?
and nah, I had to do that earlier to a dickhead I was arguing with, very obviously bad faith, only cherry picked specific pieces of my arguments, you know how it goes.
tried very hard not to as well, but damn, that motherfucker kinda pissed me off, ngl. I dunno. I find I have a much higher hit rate on this website than any other, in terms of positive engagements, right, but because of that, I would also engage with people more here than on other platforms, where I might instead put in much less effort. so it’s sort of a double edged sword, because people can much more easily waste my time. I think I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m writing for myself as a creative exercise, beholden to my own standards, more than I’m writing specifically for them, you know?
It’s best not to overthink it, as it seems you are doing (no offense meant).
If someone says ‘a’ is true, you can ask them how do you know ‘a’ is true, and if they just say oh because I know, then you can push further because that’s just a bullshit answer. Especially so if you take the comment in relation to the whole conversation you’re having with them, and the level of intellectual honesty they have in conversing with you.
As far as conversations go here on Lemmy, I’m not finding good quality of conversation here on Lemmy at all, and I’m seriously considering leaving and going back to Reddit because of that, unfortunately.
From the quality of new posts people are making to the arguments that end up happening right away inside of each one of them, it actually seems a lot worse than it was on Reddit. Good to hear it’s working out well for you though.
yeah, I’ve probably fried my brain thinking too hard about it fs, just in general.
A lot of it is up to figuring out who’s going to be the best person to engage with, which I think is pretty easily done just by looking at post length. Longer posts require higher effort, = this person will be more likely to engage in good faith. Trolls tend to leave little quips, rather than large spiels.
Also, lemmy, just like reddit, also tends to be, if not an echo chamber, then certainly, a place where you can see who’s popular, and who’s unpopular. Who holds the most mainstream “lemmy” opinion. I think it’s generally better a lot of the time to engage with people who get a lot of downvotes, but seem to be acting in good faith otherwise, cause they have interesting opinions, and I think interrogating them is a good way to help them build their case, when otherwise it would just kinda be left to shit a lot of the time. The exception are political posts where you’re going to have to uproot someone’s whole worldview in order to make them see the light.
Weirdly counterintuitive, right, because you would expect most people to be more combative after going through the ringer of downvote oblivion, but it has been my experience that if you show them a modicum of sympathy they will respond to you oftentimes much better than a more popularly opinioned user might. I don’t really know why this is, maybe it’s because people perceive themselves to have some amount of power, or maybe it’s just because users are more likely to respond to, and upvote, short quips, as we’ve seen kind of infect reddit, and obviously those people are not worth bothering 90% of the time.
I dunno, that’s the only thing that strikes me maybe about your post pattern in this thread specifically, to do a better psychic reading I’d have to look at your other posts and I’m too lazy to do that rn. Hope any of what I said helps, though.
Christian fundamentalists don’t have nothing in common with Jesus. They are fake christians. Jesus preached tolerance so many times. They fucking don’t get it that they ignore him completely.
That’s the point I’ve been trying to make. That when everyone says Christians are bad there’s actually two types of Christians, the Jesus type, and the modern Christians who use the name but don’t act like how Jesus would want them to.
You know I do find it kind of weird to bring up the no true scotsman fallacy in this shit, when the real point of that fallacy is just kind of to get people to be conscious that their mental definitions don’t actually exist in reality, and they have to work from a formal definition, right? But I think, without getting into the specifics of like, that guy’s biblical interpretation, it’s pretty obvious that they have a definition of “christian” that doesn’t line up with the others.
You might, instead of bringing up the scotsman fallacy, have better luck in hitting them with what the scotsman fallacy hearkens to, and asking them for a clear definition that you might then be able to push back on with counterexample.
Basically, I am accusing you of the fallacy fallacy.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.
The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’
But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire
The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
He is now the judge of a sinful world, and on His head is the crown of the sole ruler of earth. On His robe, dipped in blood, and on His thigh is written, “King of kings and Lord of lords,” and no one alive doesn’t tremble at the sight of Him.
The same Christianity that wiped out the pagan faiths of Europe via mass murder, led a series of bloody wars into the “Holy” Land, plunged the former empire into the dark ages, burned books and people, repeatedly murdered each other over doctrine and any minority they could grab, built instruments of torture to go after supposed heretics, and not content with the horrors they subjected parts of the Middle East and all of Europe to went forward and introduced their rot to the rest of the world.
That Christianity. The burning at the stake, stabbing homosexuals with fire pokers, the genocidal against the Jews, the rape and pillage of Arab lands, the Christianity that imprisoned and tortured any free thinker. The same one that even today is quickly working to “deal” with the Muslims and the trans.
And why shouldn’t it be exactly like that? The whole thing is modeled after one of the most repulsive characters in all of fiction.
The same Christianity that wiped out the pagan faiths of Europe via mass murder, led a series of bloody wars into the “Holy” Land, plunged the former empire into the dark ages, burned books and people, repeatedly murdered each other over doctrine and any minority they could grab, built instruments of torture to go after supposed heretics, and not content with the horrors they subjected parts of the Middle East and all of Europe to went forward and introduced their rot to the rest of the world.
You keep being intellectually dishonest. The Crusades and the other things you described were not done by Jesus, they were done by other men centuries later.
There’s a clear disembarkation in philosophy between what Jesus spoke of and taught, and what regular people throughout the ages interpreted what he said as, for their own personal benefits.
There’s a clear disembarkation in philosophy between what Jesus spoke of and taught, and what regular people throughout the ages interpreted what he said as, for their own personal benefits.
Nothing in the Bible doesn’t align with the crusades
I was responding to a comment from someone else, and not from you…
But there’s a reason why the tool is always religion
If it’s always religion then it can’t be anything else, right? So that person was indirectly stating that’s the only tool, and I was pointing out that there’s multiple ways of manipulating others, besides religion.
Because people are just their books, and have no free will of their own.
Very well. In that case I want a citation. How did you determine the “right” way and why is everyone else wrong?
You point to me in the New Testament where Jesus himself advocates violence and harm, and then we can have a conversation.
I already did this in this thread. Come on some level of effort on your point. He does it repeatedly! He talks about how he will be the future king and his enemies will be butchered then sent to hell. He makes a woman beg at his feet while calling herself a racial slur before he helps her kid. He rebukes a man with leprosy for having leprosy. He tells people to give up all means of support and their own families just to follow him.
Very well. In that case I want a citation. How did you determine the “right” way and why is everyone else wrong?
You’re being intellectually dishonest to suggest that I’m saying everyone else is wrong, as the point I’m trying to make is not that at all, that you can’t judge a whole people based on what their religion is, as people have free will and follow there religion to their modern worldview, and see what are you with me not just what ancient text stated verbaten.
As far as how I determine what the right way is, I do it via The Golden Rule. Do onto to others, as you would have others do unto you. Basically, what Jesus taught at a summary level. Be kind of others, don’t harm them help where you can, etc.
And for the record, I’m not a Christian, just in case you think you’re arguing against one.
I would love to have a Christian scholar review what you’re saying, especially the quotes that you’re stating are coming from Jesus, for factuality.
As far as how I determine what the right way is, I do it via The Golden Rule. Do onto to others, as you would have others do unto you.
And the classic justification is torturing/murdering people was needed to save their souls which is what you would want.
Basically, what Jesus taught at a summary level. Be kind of others, don’t harm them help where you can, etc.
He didn’t teach that. He didn’t exist. The idea predates the Bible by over five centuries in India, via trade routes and scholar migration it entered into that part of the world. It seems to have entered into Judaism about 50 or so BCE where it was attributed to Rabbi Hillel who has some superficial resemblance to the Jesus of Matthew.
And for the record, I’m not a Christian, just in case you think you’re arguing against one.
Very well. Would you mind commiting blasphemy against the Holy Ghost for me? A non-christian should have no problem with the unforgivable sin of Christianity.
I would love to have a Christian scholar review what you’re saying, especially the quotes that you’re stating are coming from Jesus, for factuality.
The Bible is freely available online. Do your own work.
As far as how I determine what the right way is, I do it via The Golden Rule. Do onto to others, as you would have others do unto you.
How the fuck do you get from what was said above to what is said down below?..
And the classic justification is torturing/murdering people was needed to save their souls which is what you would want.
Because I want others to murder me right. Jesus Christ.
Okay dude, I tried, honestly, but I’m blocking you. You’re literally the first person I’ve ever blocked on Lemmy, but you’re just not worth talking to.
How the fuck do you get from what was said above to what is said down below?..
Not my logic. I am pointing out the train of thought coming from St. Augustine in City of God onward. It is better to kill a hertic and give them a chance at heaven vs letting them live and they get no chance. If you don’t like that logic please invent a time machine and stop the witching burnings plus all the other awful stuff Christians did.
You know, I’ve been noticing more and more that lemmy has a bunch of people who just fuckin hate religion straight up, edgy 2010’s reddit atheism style. I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of their criticisms, but it has gotten kind of annoying seeing people attribute these clearly complex and incentive driven behaviors to something so broad, so old, and so vague.
It seems pretty obvious to me personally that conservatives have kind of given up on contesting civil rights and gay rights as a means to differentiate themselves from the other neoliberals, since those issues remain pretty deeply unpopular to contest, and are moving to this as sort of the next thing in their playbook, the next highest profile minority that they can easily lambast on nightly news. All while they try to roll back those other issues through every possible angle they might be able to work in local, state, and federal government.
That’s even a pretty big oversimplification of the issue, and the different forces involved, right, like it’s not really tied into why or how specifically they’re doing that, right, but it’s really stupid to even have that surface level understanding, and still bump up against people insisting that it’s more singularly some other driving, evil force. As though you couldn’t, were you to analyze christianity, split such a thing up into another whole litany of forces, another whole network of relations, causes and effects.
It says right in the Bible that being LGBT is a sin worthy of being sent to hell and that Jesus wants his enemies killed. Do you need me to quote chapter and verse?
Hey you know what? I fully admit I am an angry atheist. That means I say mean little things sometimes. You know what I don’t do? I don’t beat a trans kid to death inside a school bathroom, I don’t commit war crimes, and I dont descrate cultural sites.
You really want to both sides this? You really want to compare a few mean little comments to beating a child to death?
Wouldn’t this lead you to postulate that the housing crisis in America is real and out of control when the money you give them goes right into housing?
Is this how they intend to fleece America? Give people a guaranteed income paid for by their tax dollars, so it can go right into government subsidized housing, owned and run by a shadow company that the politicians and their buddies just happen to be on the board of?
Texas doesn’t have an income tax but it has incredibly high property taxes. In a very real way, this program is literally funded by taxing the super wealthy, including foreign investors. If you are a foreign national that owns a condo in one of the downtown highrises, you still pay property taxes.
It’s fine, but it depends on upkeep. Just like any other housing. It was a good idea, but needs funding (like roads, bridges, etc.).
Plenty of people live in unmaintained apartments owned by slumlords, but nobody’s saying “look at how bad private housing is!” Few people (dummies) say “look how bad public roads are!” and advocate private toll roads and bridges.
Being bad in one place doesn’t mean it’s bad everywhere. I’m sorry you had a bad experience but elsewhere the government functions as a renter of last resort with properties all over the place. What’s bad is the high rise projects that were made to corral poor minorities and cut them off from the rest of society.
I feel guaranteed income amount should be based on government contracted rates for places providing something akin to a single occupancy dorm room. so food and shelter in a basic way is covered.
Whoa there, we already know the future of subsidized housing is corporate towns. Why give it to the people when you can just give it to their rich boss instead?
“Mar-Jac Poultry’s estimated annual revenue is currently $227.1M per year. Mar-Jac Poultry’s estimated revenue per employee is $337,500” growjo.com/company/Mar-Jac_Poultry meaning that this proposed fine is less than the income this child generated for them.
The child was hired by Onin Staffing, and there is no proposal to fine them. “Onin Staffing’s estimated annual revenue is currently $235.9M per year.” growjo.com/company/Onin_Staffing
Why are there even kids working there? How old was this “teen”? What is wrong with the USA (rethorical question)?
Your numbers (i assume correctness) are making it even more worse. Disgusting even. That’s like fines not bound to income. A major kick in the nutsack for the poor and a slightly more expensive, but totally neglectable, parking-ticket for the rest.
Which would exactly change what? Still a teen that shouldn’t work in such a place. Maybe an hour a day filling shelfs in a supermarket. Not working at a deboner in a soul-crusher.
It doesn’t change anything. It’s an explanation of why the kids are hired. They’re immigrants that came across the border illegally and are being exploited. They are being helped along by Republican state laws. It’s all racism.
He told me that he called and asked for help and he thought at least maybe the police would come and check out the house, somebody might come and knock on the door and instead nothing happened. He ended up escaping eventually on his own. When I asked Health and Human Services about this, they told me that yes, they did not have a policy of calling these children back or going out once they were contacted.
Patently HHS didn’t think it was important to follow up on phone calls they receive. WTF?
Adam Conover also has a video breaking down the issue.
I think of Gen X as people born in the 70s or late 60s, so that age range is pretty much split between X and Boomers imo. They also mention later on that both generations are responsible for similar rates of meat consumption
I think both points still stand! Boomers go to the mid sixties which means the upper range of 50 to 65 covers boomers. However, the bottom range is definitely Gen X and the authors forgot you!
Having made the mistake of forgetting Gen X in a comment the other day my eyes have been opened.
aged 50 to 65—roughly correlating with the baby boomer generation
My phrasing does seem a bit awkward. I was trying to say “the article uses the age range 50 to 65 and Boomers fall into the upper half of that age range. Gen X is solidly the bottom half of that age range.”
What would independent verification mean on this? Who would qualify as independent that could reach the scene and evaluate it? At some point you can’t just decide that since the invading and allegedly responsible power doesn’t allow international investigations then no potential crime can ever be responsibly reported.
I watched the video from Al Jazeera. There are blurred sections, but at no point does it show blood or anything that is unambiguously a human body. I don’t expect that corpses with gunshot wounds would be broadcast on TV, but that still leaves commondreams.org with no evidence beyond several brief interviews filmed by Al Jazeera. I do expect that if this event took place, impartial news agencies would have access to uncensored images of the aftermath. I’m going to wait and see if the New York Times publishes something.
All the hamas cheerleaders don’t care about evidence. They’re nicer delighted to cheer on the destruction of Israel and the jews. Nothing changes in history, it just repeats.
Yeah, so funny. The few hundred Hamas members of worldnews can cry all day. Hamas will be exterminated, and I’m glad there are online records of their supporters. Good to know who is terrorist adjacent and / or working their propaganda.
I love it when they post and add their names to the list.
Criticism of Israel is not praise for Hamas. The IDF and Hamas both deserve nothing but the sharpest condemnations. Both are a blight on the Palestinians.
Oh there’s definitely praise for Hamas here. In just the past day someone equated them ewith Nelson Mandela, and another referred to them as a liberation organization. LMFAO.
The pro hamas, white nationalist, and other detestable groups are welcome at any “Palestian” rally. And always show there with strong support across the board.
This group is littered with calls for the destruction of Israel and antisemetic propaganda. I wish you were right, tbh.
And yes, I’m super sad that Hamas put Netanyahu in power (by less than half a percent tha ks to their suicicide and bus bombings to counter Perez’s lead) and collapsed chances for a two state solution.
You’ll find crazies wherever you go. I’ve argued against those same people too and pointed out to them that Hamas isn’t the rebel army for Palestinians. They cause great harm to the civilians too.
Lumping all criticism of Israel together with pro Hamas drivel only benefits Hamas. That’s what they want, to build legitimacy and hate towards Israel. You’re doing their dirty work for them. If you actually want to oppose them, call out the specific, explicit instances. Don’t rail against a Palestinian protest group – rail against the terrorist supporters who are trying to disguise themselves.
The IDF is wrong for killing innocent people. Hamas is wrong for killing innocent people. Neither of them are justified in it. Anyone who cannot accept all these statements is a bigot in some way and should be condemned.
Also, there seems to be very direct links between Netanyahu and Hamas. The NYT just reported the other day that Israeli officials allowed suitcases of money to go Palestine for Hamas to seize. Netanyahu used them to get into power and stay in power.
I get your points and appreciate the perspective. Id say it cuts both ways, that the happiness with which the Palestians embrace the “crazies” undermines everything they say. When they’re marching next to a neo-nazi and people shouting, “Gas the jews” like that protest in Australia… then I can’t fathom why I’d care at all what any of them say.
I agree with you 100, co dem war crimes. Including the IDFs…and 100% Bibi snd Hamas have always been best allies and partners.
There are blurred sections, but at no point does it show blood or anything that is unambiguously a human body.
So, what you're saying is that there's enough ground to believe that this news organization, Al Jazeera, has fabricated dead bodies. The journalist team blurred a pile of puppets or something and went on-air, lying they're human bodies. That's an interesting take...
Alright, I'm out. I have nothing more to say to you.
I won't believe it without unblurred pictures. It's not that hard; links to gory pictures should be included with a warning in these kinds of articles.
Yes, but they already have them. They could just publish the footage without editing it. The footage already does look compelling, but it would be better if it was unblurred.
I do trust Al-Jazeera's journalism generally, but I will hold them to the same standards we usually hold western media to. These images look more compelling as evidence than most of the pro-"Israeli" media's evidence, but if Al-Jazeera really wants to convince people who are biased in favor of "Israel" or the US, then it must release unedited images, video clips, and audio clips.
Holding the media outlets on your side to a high standard will benefit you in the long term.
Remember that many people still actually believe that the occupations militia never explicitly targeted civilians. These articles are the perfect thing to point to, and they should be backed by as much evidence as possible.
As for the funii request, I may try to contact Al-Jazeera tomorrow and will ask them to include the footage like they usually do.
What statement? I think that it hasn’t been independently verified is essential, because it’s true, but the person I responded to wanted the entire story to not be published.
Hey sorry, I'm just a bit curious about when you developed this strongly held view as it seems at odds with your previous posts?
Like for instance here where you readily accepted Israel's claims about Ibrahim Biari being in the refugee camp they bombed without independent verification?
I'm guessing some profound and enlightening experience in this past month has convinced you to be more critical of news sources and your previous comment has nothing to do with your support of Israel's actions such as your genocide denial or making excuses for why bombing a refugee camp was actually okay.
It just feels like your comment was made in bad-faith here, but I'm sure it was well intended.
I admit that that comment was flippant, but you’ll note that I said “apparently” there. I admit that Ibrahim Biari’s death has still not been confirmed, although I’m also unaware of any strong evidence that he is still alive.
With that said, I do think that Israel’s claim is less difficult to believe. It wouldn’t be surprising that a specific person Israel wants dead would be among the many people killed in that bombing, whereas it would be surprising if Israeli soldiers executed a group of women and children, at least because doing that would be absolutely terrible for Israel’s international relations. Even countries which accept that civilians will be killed by bombing aren’t going to support deliberate murder.
I’m not saying it’s impossible. Soldiers do things like that sometimes. I am saying it’s unlikely enough that commondreams.org shouldn’t be publishing what is effectively still just a rumor.
Check my comments. I didn’t post on any of this thread yet and I don’t have alts, but I downvoted both of you in this absolutely dumb exchange. I don’t think that’s brigading or trolling.
If you get your hypocrisy called out, shouting and pointing stalker doesn’t mean you’re suddenly not a hypocrite.
Homie, if you don’t think every Israel/Hamas thread isn’t brigaded to hell and back on a popular, mostly unmoderated, & federated instance, then you’ll be gobsmacked the moment you say anything remotely based in reality lol.
People just want to have their upvote and downvote circlejerks depending on whether it’s Pro-Israel/IDF or Pro-Palestine/Hamas. It’s no different than reddit, and just like there, the points often don’t matter.
I was debating on telling them that but I feel like some people need to pick up the cat by it’s tail to learn their lesson, not sure how convincing I could be myself.
A five paragraph diatribe over a nuanced topic when nothing OP said was odd is the dickhead propagandist behavior lol.
Calling people out on it isn’t some enlightened centrist status quo. It’s one guy wasting five paragraphs to say ‘Oh you can change your mind with new info!?’
That’s fucking hilarious weird stalker shit for Lemmy. Congrats! You got him dude!
The virtue nazis won’t stop till they achieve a new worldwide pogram. All the while touting how they’re moral paragons. But at its heart is the same worldwide antisemitism that’s always driven these clowns.
The Hamas supporters are a combination of stupid, uninformed, and racists all together in happy harmony.
Do you know there were lots of palestian jews… and jews who lived in the Ottoman Empire, and before that I the Byzantine empire; and that the arab/Muslim countries stole the land of ~800,000 jews bc they were Jewish? But you don’t protest that bc the core issue is you’re a racist antisemite.
It’d be easier to take you clowns seriously if you had a principled argument. But your rules and perspective are only contingent on whether the nation is Jewish or not.
Romans conquer Jerusalem. Jews were oppressed and discriminated against. The area is largely Jewish.
Western Roman Empire falls. Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantines, hold Jerusalem. Christians from Western Europe move to Jerusalem. The majority of the area is now Christian. Scholars seem to think it went from majority Jewish to Christian a bit after Constantine converted to Christianity. Judaism is the only non Christian religion tolerated, but Jews still face discrimination and oppression.
Byzantine - Sasanian War begins. The Jewish community revolts against the Byzantines and helps the Persians conquer Jerusalem.
Jews rule autonomously for a few years, then Persia reneges on their alliance. The Byzantine emperor promises to restore Jewish rights as part of an alliance, and the Jews help oust the Persians. The emperor goes back on his word and orders a massacre of the Jews. The Jewish population is heavily reduced, with some fleeing to Egypt.
The Rashidun Caliphate (Arabs) conquer Jerusalem. There’s a brief period of peace and prosperity. The land is initially majority Jewish or Samaritan, but slowly becomes an Arab majority as Arabs move there. This begins in the year 638 and ends in 717 when there were new laws oppressing and discriminating against Jews. This, and a series of Muslim civil wars, causes the Jews to leave. There’s a substantial reduction in the Jewish population.
The Crusades begin. Jews and Muslims alike are enslaved and killed by the crusaders. The majority of the Jewish population is killed in the Siege of Jerusalem, and the survivors sold as slaves.
The Ayyubid Dynasty drives away the Crusaders. There is peace, and some Jews return
The Ayyubid Dynasty is overthrown by the Mamluk Empire. They heavily oppress the Jews and Christians, and through mismanagement, usher in significant economic decline. A lot of Jews leave.
The Ottoman Empire conquers the region, and there is relative peace and stability.
So who stole the land? Who drove off and killed the Jewish residents? In order, it seems the Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Byzantines again, Arabs, Christian crusaders, and Mamluk. The Ottomans control the area into the modern era.
Europeans were largely the ones who stole this land and killed the Jews who lived there. Some Muslims did as well, and some other Muslims helped the Jews for some time.
Next time I suggest actually understanding the history before running your mouth like a fool.
You silly idiot. The 800,000+ jews who had their land stolen by the Muslims and Arabs was in 48 after the declaration of Israel as a state. I mean holy fuck, you’re so stupid trying to copy what you googled and think you know something.
I’m fucking embarrassed for you.
And yes, everything I said is true. There were Jews in the Byzantine empire. There were Jews in the Ottoman empire. I mean, fuck man, you’re so desperate to “gotcha” that you don’t even care about the facts.l nor could you read what I posted.
Post all your tears and Dunning-Kruger blather all you want. I’m done with your particularly cringe brand of stupid.
To your point, though, Jews would be the closest thing around to first peoples for that region.
Antisemitism is a misnomer, yes. It is referring specifically to the hatred of Jews, not semitic people in general.
The term originated around 1879, when it got popularized by a group of fantics around German journalist Wilhelm Marr by founding the “Antisemiten-Liga” (league of antisemitics). And since these guys were not the brightest, they got that detail wrong.
The term was subsequently used by Nazi Germany and they didn’t correct the inital misnomer either, so now we are stuck with that, I guess.
Oh, look… the white supremacists are still trying to deflect attention from their rabid white supremacism by accusing everybody else of being white supremacists.
Hamas bases under hospitals, 40 beheaded babies and mass rape allegations against Hamas sure didn’t need independent verification.
When it’s IDF propaganda any developing story can go on the most “reputable site” . But a story against Israel? High press standards activated!
Aljazeera doesn’t just make up stories there’s a high probability that there is truth to this since those people didn’t just randomly die on their own and the IDF did raid the place.
“Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, Israeli security forces have repeatedly used Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as human shields, ordering them to perform military tasks that risked their lives. As part of this policy, soldiers have ordered Palestinian civilians to remove suspicious objects from roads, to tell people to come out of their homes so the military can arrest them, to stand in front of soldiers while the latter shoot from behind them, and more. The Palestinian civilians were chosen at random for these tasks, and could not refuse the demand placed on them by armed soldiers.”
Seems that solider in 2008 is keeping the man behind the concrete partition. Does that look like a human shield? As for the boy, The amazing life and deeds of Mohammed Badwan – The Human Shield Amazing how he’s remained 13 years old for the last 20 years!
Do you not know more than those few English words? You attempted to dunk on us, exhibited the fact that you literally don’t know a single thing about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and then repeated yourself. Bravo.
Yeah… no, that’s not what’s going to happen. Unless Israel kills every palestinian and even then, a lot of the hamas leaders aren’t even in gaza, so, they will just start a new one. You may want to take a deep breath, get some fresh air, and stop reading and listening to fear driven news sources.
Yeah the only things I said there, that “hopefully they will” makes sense to answer is “Israel killing all Palestinians” or “Hamas will come back”. If the Israeli army was worth their salt, they wouldn’t be flattening gaza.
It’s worth pointing out that “Al Jazeera says after interviewing witnesses” is also very different from “the IDF says”. One is a news organization that’s known for generally being neutral. The other is literally one of the combatants. If anything, we should be holding the IDF to a higher standard.
Not to mention this is fairly easy to validate and confirm. The reporters who did the interviews will have transcripts and notes from it. They can release those without breaking privacy or identifying anyone, and if the notes tell the same story, it’s unlikely to be fabricated.
Absolutely. Unionize. Doctors should unionize. Accountants should unionize. Graphic designers should unionize. Everyone should unionize except the executives that have to bargain with the unions.
I’m guessing at least one of them is some desperately sad person who regularly goes through my comment history and downvotes every post regardless of what I say. I could say “Hitler was evil” and they would downvote it. It’s kind of amusing.
Or bad experiences with a union. I’ve personally seen Unions do good things, I’ve seen them have bad effects, and I’ve seen them cause frankly ridiculous delays with their rules and lack of coordination with other unions. I think theoretically Unions are a great idea, but we’ve all seen things like Police Unions make it impossible to get rid of bad cops, and otherwise protect people who I believe no normal person would say should keep their job.
My cousin is an electrician. His boss and his union rep pretty regularly attack his wife for being a trans woman and his options are to sit there and smile or to be fired and never get work again. The (whatever the term is for) apprenticeship system is pretty much built around systemic racism and nepotism and there are a LOT of sexual abuse “scandals” that never see the light of day.
A union, by definition, is about giving power to the people. But if the people are shitbags too, it doesn’t change a lot. Its the exact same problem that companies like Activision-Blizzard had where it is a culture of abuse where the c-suite and the middle managers and even the co-workers are doing “cube crawls” and the like. You can give more bargaining power to the workers but that doesn’t help when the workers themselves are abusive.
I am generally pro union but they do not solve anywhere near as many problems as The Internet likes to pretend they do. And I can very much see a case where a lot of the leadership in the medical community have the “Everyone needs to go through a crucible” mentality. Hell, my aunt is a doctor and has even bragged about how many days straight she could work when she was in her residency and so forth.
Currently, union power is at low ebb. Yes, unions can be and have been terrible engines of corruption when their power grows. I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know people who control millions of dollars are better than those who control billions, if only by degree. We need to tackle wealth disparity.
I am not convinced that there is a significant difference in shitty behavior between millionaires and billionaires. The consequences ship has already long since sailed by the time you are at a couple million. But tell that to the people being sexually harassed and assaulted by their managers and sometimes even union reps. Tell them that they don’t matter right now and what matters is “wealth inequality”.
Hell, you might as well tell them that you are going to give their abusers even more power since the union leadership generally comes from the “popular” low level managers and workers.
Like I said, I think unions are, generally, a net good. But it aggravates me to no end when people ignore the problems they can and can’t solve.
Social Stockholm Syndrome, venerating their suffering as if ones capacity to suffer is something that should be respected and strengthened like a muscle.
…all while disregarding the dystopic culture that fostered the “growth”.
I got in an argument with a pair of my brothers over student loan relief. All 3 of us have paid our student loans back the same way, by living an austere life with 2 jobs for at least a decade. My older brother, the most conservative “progress is a slow march” brother, was absolutely against it. He paid his off, others can too, or at least he should get his money back then, if everyone’s just being let off the hook. I disagreed with him, as I usually do but I approach problems different than he does. He looks at the immediate, how it affects him and figures what’s fair - and there’s nothing wrong with that per se.
I look at the solution and try to identify the markers, or steps, necessary to get there. Then I weigh the steps against the desired solution to determine what is viable. I work backwards from the solution.
My younger brother and I share the same mind on student loans; forgive them, every outstanding balance and end the paygating of knowledge in general - because those holding the keys to the gates didn’t come up with the contents theyre guarding, they themselves are stewards, not owners.
I don’t care that I was able to pay off my loans, it’s more important that we move past the paygating - which is really power projection - than any benefit I myself might be able to gain.
Moving ahead, either personally or socially will at times require looking ahead more than looking at now or the path preceding. I think this kind of insight is crucial to any leadership, large or small, union or otherwise.
I’m if the opinion that if we must make a choice to act together in a group, then let’s figure out and establish our best practices, ensure the appropriate smart people are involved and do whatever with the soft (not-monetized) values we want fostered, ie with compassion, patience, understanding, offering respect and integrity, not demanding obedience before giving them. A society that doesn’t work from those values will lose those values. And that’s pervasive, from your HOA meetings to town hall, from loading dock smoke breaks to union halls. All the way to fancy granite buildings.
So the thing that stands out to me is I had a summer job for 2 weeks in a grocery store. We all had to join the union (I forget what union it was). I had to pay union dues on a temporary minimum wage job. The great union actually caused me to be paid less than minimum wage. I don’t know what they were bargaining for, but they suck if their negotiations leads to less pay than just working literally anywhere else without a union. I left after the 2 weeks because I got a non-union job paying 1.50 more an hour back in the early aughts.
My dad always told me stories about the union construction or maintenance people where he worked. Carpenters would come in, look at the storage area for raw materials and walk out saying, we can’t get to the wood because the electricians put in wire spools in front of it when filling the room, and we can’t touch the wire spool, we can’t move it, we can’t set up a ladder and climb over it. So they’d get paid for a day for sitting there, till the electricians came and moved the spools. And vice versa.
In my current job the facilities people are all union, which is fine, but it takes them forever to get to stuff, and because we have some areas that are scientific in nature and have radiation in them, they won’t enter. We get some sort of pass to have non-union people who can do the work and will enter the areas and they show up much faster and do the job. The Union regularly complains about this until they’re reminded that they refuse to enter the areas, or commit to the SLA that is required to run the facility.
I think all of this is bad for unions. I would want unions to be the best people and the most willing to do a good job within treating the employees like humans. But that’s too often not what happens. The best things I’ve ever seen unions do is basically show up like a psudo lawyer or pay for a lawyer when my dad or mom (both were in a union) were being unfairly fired (both were allowed to retire with full benefits instead, but still didn’t get to keep their jobs).
I’m not saying I don’t think unions can be good - they got us the current work week. I’m saying they’re earning some of their reputation, which lets the propaganda from the right wing work much better.
At my job years ago they had a required training that was watching a video that was essentially anti union propaganda.
They had two managers discussing the need for a new supervisor position opening up, and discussing two qualified candidates. Then a third guy (poorly dressed and obnoxious personality) comes in and says they have to promote this other guy, due to union rules. The managers exclaim that guy barely ever comes to work and when he does has very poor performance, but Obnoxious Union Guy insists their hands are tied and they must promote him.
End Scene.
Now, good employee forced to watch this video, can’t you see how unions are bad?? And YOU have to pay a fee to essentially destroy the company so we go under and you have to get a new job! Be a good little employee and keep working hard and forget the word Union exists.
How does that work for smaller businesses? Legit asking.
I’m pro-union, but with a whopping…7 employees on good day, I’m struggling to see how bringing in a union would help without having massive overhead cost due to the lack of quantity being paid in.
My company already pays as much as it can back to the employees (I am the lowest paid employee, as the owner, at what amounts to a $1 salary), we pay as much as we can afford towards health benefits, we reimburse a portion of home internet and cell, and we do a lot that results in free meals and other gifts for employees.
That said, I wouldn’t be opposed to a union if it improved morale, but I am just struggling to understand where they would add the best value for the cost. I don’t want my employees to suffer, but frankly if union dues cost like…I don’t know, $3500/mo, I’d much rather just split that money across the employees to pocket on their own.
edit: To the people down voting, I would legitimately love to hear why. And am looking for feedback on how you think I should fix the situation.
With a smaller business yeah you are right as long as the business is paying what it can then no a union is probably not a good idea. As long as the owners are willing to up the pay as far as they reasonably can then the union dues just take from the employee. But I was talking about in general unions are good.
Every penny goes to the employees, I pay myself $1 and nothing more, no distributions, no bonuses, no private stock, nothing. During peak COVID I had to pay wages and benefits out of pocket since we were closed.
At the end of the day I just do the bookkeeping and permits/license paperwork and crap. I’m not doing any of the actual work. So I shouldn’t really be paid.
Actually, the executives should probably also unionise, it will help normalise negotiations and spread best practices that lead to a better work environment for all.
If executive unions could enforced a max amount of hours worked for executives and other similar quality of life requirements. Maybe there would be fewer sociopaths and more humans in executive positions.
I don’t know if that will achieve what you want it to. Remember, the AMPTP is a union and it was able to get concessions from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA which are not good for the workers.
Correct, but they would often benefit from having collective bargaining against the board of directors or other owners.
And organising themselves as a union would also show them that unions aren’t evil and shift focus from exploitation to cooperation. Besides, many unions would have much use of being able to speak for the whole industry in matters of legislation, either as lobby or expert.
Executives are already part of a union. Boards approve the executive hiring of a company, but those boards are made up of executives from other companies. And those companies have boards that include executives from other companies. Hiring and firing of executives are handled by a collective of executives across many companies. It’s a union that protects itself.
So, 60 thousand people is like 0.15% of California’s population. That’s like a 400 lb. man going on a diet and losing 9.6 ounces. Is it really even worth mentioning?
I don’t remember, tbh. I do agree with your comment that the headline is misleading in that it implies wrongly that net migration from Texas to California is positive.
I do think people make way too much of the net migration from California to Texas, which I think can fairly be described as negligible. I don’t recall what made me think that a reply to your comment was the best place to make that argument. Maybe because this was where I was when I saw the 60k figure. Sorry if it was off-putting.
I feel like people keep going to Texas because the rent is too high in california, then they go back to California because there are no freedoms in Texas, which forces them to go back to Texas because there’s no place to live in California as it’s too expensive. And they’re just stuck in this Loop
I feel like people keep going to Texas because the rent is too high in california, then they go back to California because there are no freedoms in Texas, which forces them to go back to Texas because there’s no place to live in California as it’s too expensive. And they’re just stuck in this Loop
I feel this whole case is everything wrong with the justice system (aside from him actually facing consequences). A corrupt cop with a history of violence gets attacked in an overpopulated and understaffed prison where folks are punished instead of rehabilitated.
This person spent a career throwing people into this exact system. Eagerly, if my perception of his past behavior after watching his entire trial is at all representative.
Yeah I think people are forgetting this was a cop who actively perpetuated this system. And not even in a “just following orders” sense, he seemed to delight in it.
If someone can be rehabilitated, I believe that implies that they can be unhabilitated. It kinda implies that people aren’t inherently bad / don’t do bad things without something causing them to. If your dog shits inside because you forgot to take it out, do you punish it? If so, congratulations on being consistent, -ly an asshole.
Yes to both. Keep in mind “understaffed” means lots of things to lots of people.
That prisons aren’t basically forced schools and therapy is an atrocity, to me, as an example. It changes the entire concept of what prison is about in ways I find unacceptable
I know a prison guard, not very well but yes we have talked a few times. He was telling me how there is basically no system in place for therapy for them. They see something brutal and they are expected to just come into work the next day which causes PTSD to run rampant.
Can confirm. Don’t want to be brave. Don’t want to be controversial. Don’t want to piss anyone off. Don’t want to stick it to anyone. Just want to live my own life and be left the fuck alone like literally everyone else. This very real problem that I was born with is my issue to fix and no one else’s. And my life would have been a hundred times easier if I’d been listened to when I first voiced this problem as a minor.
I really really don’t understand what people have against you. What you do with your body is obviously none of their business whatsoever. I don’t get why people even want to have an opinion about that.
FWIW I’m really happy for you that you can live your life in the proper body to match your soul and I’m an LGBTQI+ ally <3 (and a little on the Q side myself).
I can understand people don’t want to be trans because they are simply in the right body or they aren’t but have religious doubts or whatever but that deep hatred I see even in some of my “friends” scares me.
No one wants to be trans. We just are born with it and have to figure it out. It’s basically a medical issue. I didn’t choose to do anything to my body either. The choice isn’t there when not transitioning can deteriorate to being fundamentally incompatible with staying alive. A lot of bigots insist that transitioning is some trendy or otherwise low stakes thing but our lives would be so much easier if it was as easy as just not transitioning.
I apologize , that didn’t come across as intended. I didn’t mean to imply that it’s a matter of wanting at all.
I just argued against the narrative that somehow trans people are forcing cis people to become trans. Obviously they don’t ‘want’ that because they are in the right body for them. This is where all the “Don’t say gay” idiocy comes from. Because they view it as propaganda or something.
But of course the whole premise is BS. Even the concept of ‘becoming’ trans is. And yes I know it’s not a choice <3
We just are born with it and have to figure it out. It’s basically a medical issue.
I’m sorry, but this is just not true. It’s necessarily at least partially a psychological and social issue. Why am I certain about this? Because there are clear distinctions in the number of transgender people in different time periods and different age groups. Our species hasn’t changed in 10-30 years, but these numbers have changed massively.
If you’re steelmanning the argument of “terfs”, this is the thing they’re critical about. If we are in some easily correctable way causing trans people to appear where they in other circumstances would not, this should be looked into. For instance, the number of transgender identified people doubled during the Covid years. So perhaps it’s not a good idea to hole up teenagers in their rooms every day and prevent them from seeing their peers?
This is not to say that people with this condition (whatever its reason) should be treated differently from those without the condition. As you said, almost nobody wants to be trans, so if it can be actually prevented (in ethical ways, not like electroshock therapy or conversion therapy or some other absolute shit like that), that’s certainly a good thing?
the number of measured sinister people (as in, left-handed, that’s where the word comes from) were rising like crazy too when it started gaining cultural acceptance that maybe, just maybe it’s not evil that you use your left hand to do things. it was like a whole epidemic, sinister people started popping up left and right.
…and then it plateaued at a flat 12.5% and stayed there since. turns out that’s just the biological occurrence rate, but everyone was under-measuring it because people weren’t willing to own it up that they’re left-handed.
trans people are the same. you get different amounts of persecution for it between different time periods and different regimes, and you get different levels of acceptance in different age groups, but the level of persecution is not zero anywhere. it’s not as normalized as just being a lefty. as such, the measured number of trans people is below the real amount in all of these situations, and how much below it is represents the amount of repression and persecution. we’ll get accurate numbers for the occurrence rate of people born in the wrong bodies when the stigma is gone.
also, you seriously misinterpreted the medical issue. the issue isn’t with the brain, it’s with the body. you’re not a pile of muscle with some neurons slapped on top of it, you’re a brain piloting a meat suit, and if the meat suit is the wrong kind that’s what needs to be corrected. and that correction is much easier to do before puberty than after. which is why you need to listen to trans kids and at the very least give them puberty blockers, or preferably adequate hormone therapy. but you can’t “prevent” trans people unless you can detect and fix the issue in the womb.
he number of measured sinister people (as in, left-handed, that’s where the word comes from) were rising like crazy too when it started gaining cultural acceptance that maybe, just maybe it’s not evil that you use your left hand to do things. it was like a whole epidemic, sinister people started popping up left and right.
Social acceptance is clearly a factor – which is why I said that this is also a social issue.
and that correction is much easier to do before puberty than after. which is why you need to listen to trans kids and at the very least give them puberty blockers, or preferably adequate hormone therapy.
I have yet to find (and I have tried because my close family has a transgender individual) an impartial and comprehensive study on the effects on puberty blockers. I have found plenty of studies separately confirming both sides of the issue. Puberty blockers seem to be at the same time absolutely harmless and the most destructive thing you can give a teenager. I’d be happy to look at such studies.
the issue isn’t with the brain, it’s with the body.
Sorry, I don’t get this. Why cannot it be an issue with the brain? We know for certain that the brain does wonky stuff a lot. Why couldn’t this be one of them? Some people get gender dysphoria at a later age, does that mean that their body was correct until that point in time?
but you can’t “prevent” trans people unless you can detect and fix the issue in the womb.
Except you can if we consider the possibility that it’s created also by psychological or social circumstances. Increased numbers during Covid lockdowns suggest this. If we don’t face another pandemic, the statistics should soon enough show us if it actually had any effect – if the trend continues like this then it obviously didn’t have an effect.
I also haven’t seen statistical studies about this, and it’s probably too early also to study it properly.
have you considered that maybe covid just gave people some much needed time to sit back, relax, and recognize things about themselves?
this isn’t rocket science. i get the shtick of the “enlightened” centrist but when one side just wants to exist and the other side wants a trans genocide the right answer isn’t maybe a little genocide, as a treat. and if you don’t know how to tell apart conflicting data about trans people, you’d do well to actually listen to them for once, as opposed to discrediting them as biased and “just one side”.
have you considered that maybe covid just gave people some much needed time to sit back, relax, and recognize things about themselves?
Yeah, sorry, definite nope to this. We have plenty of data about this, and the data clearly shows dramatically increased mental issues in pretty much all groups of young adults caused by the lockdowns. Whether these issues have anything to do with transgenderism is of course not shown by that data. Mental issues correlate strongly with transgenderism though, but you can legitimately claim that that’s at least partly due to social anxiety.
this isn’t rocket science. i get the shtick of the “enlightened” centrist but when one side just wants to exist and the other side wants a trans genocide the right answer isn’t maybe a little genocide, as a treat. and if you don’t know how to tell apart conflicting data about trans people, you’d do well to actually listen to them for once, as opposed to discrediting them as biased and “just one side”.
Do you honestly think based on this discussion that I want trans genocide even a little bit? That I want the person in my close family to die?
This is an unfair response. I absolutely disagree with the other poster, but implicitly accusing them of supporting a little genocide, rather than just having a disagreeable opinion, is just so fucking bizarre and uncalled for.
genocide doesn’t just mean murder, it means destruction of a people, which can be done by destroying identities even without killing the people behind those identities. i don’t think it’s inaccurate.
said other poster is actively advocating for a form of conversion therapy, just on little kids instead of adults, while questioning whether trans people are even real or just a delusion. if you hang around literally any oppressed group you’ll see this “well-educated genuine concern” and conditional support rhetoric all the time. it’s veiled bigotry, nothing more.
They might be a bigot, I don’t really know. But nothing they said is so offensive that I could possibly interpret it as suggesting any level of genocide.
It just strikes me as trying to demonize a person to make it easier to reject their position without giving it much thought. Why consider anything coming from the mouth of s genocidal maniac?
Considering it’s only relatively recently that being trans wouldn’t get you arrested (and earlier murdered), of course there are more openly trans people now!
This could be true. You’re claiming it way too strongly, I think. It could also be that the acceptance of transgenderism is causing people to form transgender identities. This is not an absurd concept given neuroplasticity and the theory of Behaviorism.
As a sufferer, it’s true. It’s very real. I can’t argue with your ridiculous post any more than a diabetic can be expected to argue in favor of having access to insulin. Terfs have literally nothing to do with my experience with being trans. Everything you have written here is exhausting to have to deal with and it’s insane that people trot out this clowny shit when they have no idea what it’s like to live with this their entire fucking lives.
Downvoting me doesn’t invalidate my lived experience lmao
I mean the difference is likely not based out of a difference in the number of trans people but in the cultural risk one has in living out of the closet. Destigmatizing left handedness saw a sudden generation jump in people who were left handed. If you don’t think you are likely to be accepted you struggle in darkness.
The covid bump has another possible explanation. My trans nature long existed in the shadow. My industry is such where it’s all short term employment and causing your team any friction could mean falling to the bottom of the employment pool. I didn’t try to be out because it came with drawbacks. Coming out to people is also the process of onboarding everyone and that transition period where people know but are still fucking up your name and pronouns takes a lot of your mental energy. It some ways it sucks less when people don’t know they are hurting you. Then it’s just not their fault. Once they know the struggle to switch how they think of you is plain. It’s obvious they don’t think of you as your gender, they just are faking it until they do and that disparity draws more attention to your own body and presentation and the uphill battle of true acceptance even if they are theoretically on board with trans issues. My Mom STILL fucks up my name and pronouns and even though she loves me it’s like an admission that she will NEVER actually see me as I see myself. It’s difficult to do that and work a soul crushing job at the same time so it was something I did one person at a time and I was a fucking hot mess in the process.
Then Covid happened and I was isolated in my cohort of friends and family to whom I was spottily out to. I had the time to DO the work and have the conversation and be the hot mess. I figured out I was trans back when I was 21 but there was a fifteen year gap before I came out to people outside because it seemed like a monumental task where I would risk losing a huge chunk of my relationships, risk my career and still have to juggle going to work every day even when I felt like dying. But since people started talking about it and showing trans issue support it gave me hope that there would be light on the other side. So by the time covid came around I was half-out.
But then during covid I got to live as myself full time. It’s like having an allergy you are exposed to all the time. You don’t realize exactly how shitty you feel until you stop being exposed to it and you realize that your capacity to feel generally more energetic and healthy is actually way higher than you thought… And returning to exposure makes it hit that much harder.
Returning to work I realized how bad I actually felt and felt more compelled to do something about it. Having the time to actually do the work, not on myself but on the people around me, gave me a taste of what it feels like to be healthy and it’s hard to forget being actually happy and then willingly just go back to being miserable. From the outside it might look like being cooped up caused me to be trans but it’s the opposite. Being cooped up gave me time to properly socially transition where the risks were lowered.
This is one of the difficult parts for most of us normies, I suppose. If I imagine myself in a woman’s body, the thought doesn’t fill me with neither anticipation nor dread. It seems to me that my identity is not at all linked to my gender. Is this just a symptom of being too comfortable with the current situation and not being able to properly imagine how a conflict would feel like?
Probably. I ask cis folk about this pretty frequently because while I understand being trans I don’t actually know what it is like to be cis, it is just sort of assumed mutual experience amongst cis folk. Trans is my lived experience and our society insists we need to defend our needs in ways that make sense to them but cisness is just as interesting. I encounter two camps. The majority of cis people I ask this question to just don’t feel strongly about their body on the axis of their sex. They might feel dysmorphias around not looking good by the rubric of their sex that’s more about how the privilege of beauty or ugliness impacts their lives.
I have also encountered a minority of cis people who are actually decently euphoric about their gender. Sometimes that has to do with the cultural bits of their experience and sometimes not. The one thing they have in common is they actually just really love what they got going on. Being male or female is an integral part of their self identity.
My personal COMPLETELY unsubstantiated posit that these two versions of cisness are distinct and the with the euphoric version they are basically experiencing the key component of binary trans nature with the one factor different being the body and mind are in alignment and not at odds.
Some of the non-binary agender experience seems almost like an extreme version of what you experience where the concept of gender matters so little internally that it’s outside application to aspects of your life become a complete nuisance as if becomes an obstacle to people recognizing the actual person you are as they make too many assumptions about you based on a factor which is personally meaningless.
Not to say this is key to all agender folk. Some folk just react poorly to having any sexual characteristics at all. Non-binary as it’s own spectrum is internally made up of such disparate presentations it is like comparing peaches to green peppers. Both are fruit but they practically nothing alike in experience.
The thing is in both cases it’s hard for cis folk to really empathize with the trans experience because they either can’t get a handle on what it is to care about gender at all or they take their comfort as a given and don’t realize just how bad it is to live without that source of confidence.
Hey mate, I think you meant this as a lighthearted joke, but I’m really not sure it comes across very well in text. Can I suggest you reconsider it, as it might seem kinda insensitive?
It’s just an idiotic persona the article is about—just one, at least. I mean, I had a chuckle while making a point that people are fully aware these people bandwagoning just for a fight and personal gratification do damage. But, okay.
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