What I’d like to know is why they’re developing Lemmy if they’re like, actively Chinese agents. No Chinese citizen would even be allowed to use Lemmy so it’s baffling, and the Chinese government would not want a social media site that’s uncontrollable by the state.
If they aren’t Chinese agents I’m completely flummoxed as to how this community formed that’s so incredibly pro china?
I have no idea, but I’ve seen many people incredibly pro-China who are not Chinese or have any association with China. It’s baffling but it is a thing!
No idea why but on the other hand many people are pro US and they have interfered all over the world. Then there is the pro russian crowd and so on. As others have said thankfully a platform such as this gives space for all viewpoints and we can respectfully share different views.
As someone living in a country once under a US-backed dictatorship, I welcome the arrival of a new superpower in town. Not that China is much better than the US but at least they should keep each other in check.
It's a form of brain rot when you hear the phrase "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and think that they're your actual friend, and not another potential enemy who just so happens to be in a position to take up the resources/attention of your main enemy.
Almost everyone agrees that capitalism is the most evil system ever created.
The part where we disagree is that the tankies think you need an authoritarian state to murder all the capitalist, and anyone sympathetic to capitalist ideals, and eventually anyone who disagrees with all the murder.
At that point, you have an elite class (the ruling dictator) and everyone else who either obey or die. That's not communism, that's feudalism with extra steps. Which coincidentally is also the endpoint of capitalism.
No, the correct way to spread communism and socialist ideals is via educating the masses until the masses demand it, and then it can only ever truly exist under an actual free and fair democracy.
Coincidentally, the first step in the process is the easiest to sell. Voting reform. Everyone knows that voting in a two party system sucks. It's how the rich maintain control of the government, it forces the people to choose the lesser evil and not the greater good. STAR voting is the answer.
That's step one. It lets us regain control of the government for the people. After that, we simply let the people decide, because the vast majority of people like left leaning policy. The two party system of plurality voting tricks people into voting against their own interests, despite how much they like any single policy.
And before anyone chimes in with Ranked Choice as an option. Real world elections with it have produced worse results than Plurality. It's about the single worst design for a voting system that you could have. A coin flip often produces a better result than Ranked Choice. Aside from the other faults of the system, Ballot Exhaustion is particularly evil. Up to 20% of votes cast in any given RCV election aren't counted in the final tally because of Exhaustion.
RCV actually sets voting reform efforts back. It actively hurts the cause because of how bad it is.
Anyway, that turned into, like, three different rants.
Great points, I do love me a meandering rant! Could you explain more about STAR voting? From a skim of the wiki page it sounds basically how I understood rank choice voting to work.
I tend towards the more anarchist side of things. The hope of the people ever getting any meaningful control over the existing levers of power, without becoming that which they seek to destroy, seems like a fools errand. I tend to think a more pragmatic approach would be building real, positive, anti-capitalist, local communities that live like the world is dying, and work survive the death throws of the state. And also democratization of the workplace for the love of fuck!
What I really like so much about Lemmy is the apparent willingness of folks to have real honest discussions about things. Even agreeing to disagree. I am intelligent enough to have a vague understanding of how much shit I don’t know, and that there is no end all, be all ideology. I just know that the world could be a damn sight better than those in charge believe it can be.
It would be unfortunate if some of the creators of Lemmy lacked the empathy and curiosity of it’s members, and supposed reason for Lemmy’s existence. I hope that isn’t the case, but it seems, by virtue of the fediverse, to be ways of growing communities in spite of.
I do find it pretty amusing that the supposedly “CCP tankie agit-prop” instance isn’t Lemmygrad, considering they literally have a fucking tank for a logo.
Okay, Ranked Choice is a system where you have to rank candidates in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Fuck that up and your ballot is thrown out.
The way Ranked Choice is counted is thus, If no single candidate has at least 50% of the current valid ballots, the candidate with the least amount of votes is ejected from the election and the ballots that have the ejected candidate move on to the next remaining candidate on said ballot.
This works quite well if the election only has two rounds. You have your first choice and then a backup. Done.
It falls apart badly if you have more than two rounds. Your backup might have been eliminated in an earlier round, and now your vote goes to the backup of the backup, but maybe they weren't popular either and also got removed in an early round. Now your vote goes to your last placed candidate, your most hated option. Or your ballot is just completely thrown out. The ultimate winner needs 50% of remaining ballots, which can end up being 80% of the initial ballots cast. 20% of ballots are just thrown out.
And the really fun part, if you had swapped your first choice for the second, the chances of either of them winning would have skyrocketed.
Because Ranked Choice makes no fucking sense. There are about a dozen research papers based on actual real world elections that try to explain how the fuck the results happened. Results that never match the polling data, because the system is fucked.
Also, Ranked Choice has to be counted in a singular location, you have to physically ship all the ballots over, and if extra ballots show up, well, who the fuck knows where they come from. The single counting location also means you cannot start counting until after the election is over.
The "mysterious additional ballots fuckup" actually happened in a NYC mayoral race, the winning candidate was actually the one to say hold on, this doesn't line up right, the source of the extra ballots was found as test ballots that should not have had the actual candidates listed, it should have had something like ice cream flavors or some shit. Anyway, the winning candidate still actually won.
We can't say the same about the fuck-up in San Francisco, where the count procedure was wrong, and the actual winning candidate was eliminated in the first round, and the candidate who should have actually been eliminated was sworn in and actually served in the position for a full month.
It's these sorts of fuckups that set the entire voting reform effort back by decades.
STAR voting is substantially different.
A voter basically gives each candidate a 5-star review. Multiple candidates can have the same rating.
Counting is also different. You simply count up the score that each candidate gets, and add it to the running total. Counting can be done at the polling location. This makes the election more secure. There's no single point of failure.
You can also count ballots as you go. You can then publicly release that data as it comes in.
When the election is over, the two candidates with the highest average scores compete in an automatic runoff.
How it works is simple. You look at every ballot. If candidate A is rated at a 5 and candidate B a 3, then the vote goes to A. That's it, whoever is rated higher on any given ballot gets that ballot as a vote.
The twist is when two candidates are rated the same. Those ballots are still counted. They're counted as "No preference" and the number of those is also released.
This lets the newly elected person know just how much of a true mandate they have. If your average was a 3.2 and almost a third of the people who did vote for you had no preference between you and the runner-up, your behavior in office should probably reflect that fact.
Rather than just saying "I'm the winner, fuck you" which would likely still happen...
Thanks for the explanation! So the main difference is in STAR you can rate a zero, and ranked choice you can only have a least preference, correct? I can see how that could be problematic.
The main difference is in how the votes are counted.
In RCV it's a series of tiny first past the post elections all rolled into one. You vote for person A at the expense of person B. You have to choose one or the other, and that forced choice often comes back to hurt you. It's an Ordinal voting system.
STAR is a Cardinal voting system at its core. Think of it this way, giving a 5-star review to the local steakhouse has nothing to do with the 3-star review you gave to the sandwich shop down the road.
Basically, Ordinal systems fall prey to Arrow's Theorem. This boils down to eventually being forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Which then leads to two-party dominance. Cardinal systems sidestep that completely.
This live stream is about three hours long, but breaks down STAR and RCV, and the massive flaws of RCV.
I suspect the CCP has effective LLMs running coordinated campaigns on here and other social media. A downside of anonymous social media, it’s hard to know who or what is voting/you’re talking to.
But instances are controllable by the state. That's the entire point, to be the admin of your feudal kingdom that other kingdoms can defederate from, but you still have full control over your instance's content and users.
If you want something that can't be really controlled by the state, you need a platform like Aether.
It's worth noting that a lot of Chinese citizenry have actually benefitted from the CCP in regards to the serious economic growth China has seen in the last few years. Or at least, a lot of the Chinese citizenry attribute the growth to the CCP, and it's understandable why.
There are a lot of people in China that genuinely like the CCP government, and not in a Stalin way where you only said so to avoid disappearing.
That's not to say the CCP aren't guilty of some serious crimes, but when you've got a large amount of people having somewhat recently gone from from poverty to middle class, you tend to get a few die-hard supporters.
The post 80s reform saw a massive growth of the Chinese middle class, at a time when the Cultural Revolution was no longer talked about or taught in schools.
They’re literally financed by the EU, via NLnet grants. They aren’t CCP agents, they’re just communists, who tend to have a more nuanced view of china because they’ve actually read the history and theory of the chinese state.
There are tons of commies who have major issues with modern china, though idk if the lemmy devs are in that camp or totally onboard with dengism/modern chinese policy, but typically their (communists’) issues aren’t as surface level as “but tiananmen square! uyghur genocide!”. because they see those issues as being 99% used as western propaganda and heavily distorted.
Suppressing different views on a platform doesn’t make them go away, it only radicalises them. The only real, long term solution is debate and persuasion.
I remember a point of time not too long ago when the world didn’t tolerate this bullshit out in the open.
Guess what? We didn’t have the extreme issues we’re seeing now from these groups after allowing them to advertise over every legit platform.
So don’t feed me this shit that if we don’t give them a platform, that they will become a problem. They are a bloody fucking problem ** now** that we have.
Don’t take this badly, but we’re all racist (or at least some kind of “-ist”) because the Human Cognitive System naturally uses simplifications to be able to interpret and take decisions on the world around us, including on people, so boiling people down to some “group” on something very visible (gender, skin color, clothing, the kind of words they use, how they move and speak and so on) and then assuming they’re “like” some idea you have about people from that group (i.e prejudicing them) is a natural tendency.
Further all those ideas one has about “people from a group” are invariably bollocks and often absorbed subconsciously through the same mechanisms as used by Marketing to influence people.
All you can do is be on the watch for you yourself making such unfair judgements on others due to your own mental simplifying and categorizing of people, and stopping it when you notice it and refraining from acting based on any judgements that cannot be traced to what that individual has done and said (all of which if Cognitivelly a lot heavier than “categorization and assumption”).
So de facto racism isn’t about holding prejudiced ideas it’s about a whole range of how much effort you make to treat people based on their individual actions and words alone and stopping yourself from using categorization to judge people (and even decide what to tell them and how to act towards them).
Note that I’m not trying to excuse racism here: I’m saying you can’t simply deem yourself “not a racist”, because it’s the result of natural human tendencies so ethernal vigilance is required not to act so, even if your intentions are pure.
All this to say that “racism” (or more generally categorizing people and making prejudiced judgements on them base on that category) really isn’t the right thing to claim has no middle ground, because it’s a range and a person’s position on it boils down to how much effort that person makes to try and stop themselves from letting the “conclusions” coming through such cognitive paths influence their words and actions.
Or to put things in another way - people who practice violent acts against others purelly based on the skin color of said others are very racist (extremelly so) and people who have different expectations on the behaviour, life status and even worth as a person (i.e. presumed good person or presumed bad person) of others based on their skin color are racist too, though if they don’t actually act on it or verbalized it, they’re way way less racist that the extreme ones.
I wanna do it even here. It’s that ok with you or are you too much of a pussy to fight back even in a virtual space where there is close to no risk for you as an individual? Or maybe you don’t want to fight because you don’t dislike this ideology so much…
Nono, I mean punching literal faces or relentlessly forcing people out of inclusionary spaces. Shun them as the Germans did with nazis post WWII, there is only good to be achieved with this tactic.
I would never punch my screen, I need it to shame nazis wherever I go.
Ah yes, let just allow a bunch of violent extremists bring their radicalising ideas to the mainstream through the use of logical fallacies and of fake news in an historical period where the investments in schools and higher education are stifled by most of the world governments, I’m sure nothing bad will happen.
Am I right, Florida? And what about you Texas, do you also think I’m right? Italy and part of Germany are sure I’m right, so this must be a great idea.
There are mountains of historical evidence and examples to suggest that these people are not behaving rationally or even willing to be persuaded. You can’t reason someone out of a position that they didn’t first reason themselves in to.
Some won’t be persuaded, some will. Plus, when there’s a bunch of people in a room, there’s a collective will to find consensus and be liked. People who didn’t reason themselves into their position will move their views closer to that of the collective to be more comfortable. At the same time, if they are being banned and restricted, there’s an instinctual will to fight back. E.g. if someone is angry at me or hostile towards me, it almost doesn’t matter if I agree with them, I’m likely to oppose them.
Oh yeah, let’s talk about millions of American voters (to make an example) being fucked in the head by the alt-right as “someone”. Just a few people being duped and convinced to fight for an exclusionary ideology, what could go wrong? They surely would never try to organise a coup to forcibly take control of our governments, right?
Such a great position to hold, if you are deaf or blind
Plus, how would you have handled a swarm of uneducated swines refusing to partake in the most common cure to a viral disease, transforming themselves in the biggest biological threat to our societies? As a centrist I’m sure you would have fought to find “common ground” with the virus…
Jan 6th is the result of exactly the thing I’m warning against. If people are forced to create their own isolated groups, the views that make them isolated will only strengthen. If they are out in the open, it’s an opportunity to bring them back into the mainstream. If antivax views weren’t being removed, way fewer people would believe in them.
The problem with isolating as you intend it is that the sole web isolation Is not enough. They need even more isolation from any aspect of civilized society to learn their lesson.
Bar them from schools, hospitals, streets, public spaces and see how quickly their number will decrease, both for changes of hearts as well as for natural causes
I think my position cannot be defended when my interlocutor does not engage with a civil and honest debate, using smears, fake news and logical fallacies to cover his lack of ground to sustain his position. Furthermore, the only viable way to maintain a power structure based on these assumptions it’s to defend it via the use of brute force. Once these people will gain power there will be no way to avoid their violence repressing any opposition to their ideology, as we are seeing in all those states I cited in my previous reply which are now passing laws repressing the access to voter rights and limiting the people ability to join advocacy groups and activist parties.
So, no, I don’t think my position is weaker than that of a nazi but I do recognise the need to apply the same violence they would use once in power to deny them the chance to make their ideology a reality for all of us.
Intolerance should be fought with intolerance since it does not understand any other reasoning outside of pure physical strength.
Any tactic that they can use to argue, you can use too. Plus, you have the truth on your side. Why wouldn’t the optimal view win? The justification “they’d do it if they were to come to power” can be applied to any group and leads to authoritarianism. Trust that people are, in total, not idiots. There will always be some dangerous people, but that’s unavoidable.
Again, you are arguing to the opposite result of what an in depth analysis of the current world situation would lead to.
First of all I am not going to engage a debate in a dishonest way. Call it my upbringing, my character or whatever you like but if I do engage in a discussion with someone, like I am with you now, I do it with the premise that I don’t hold the truth in my hands and that I can always be persuaded to change my mind if presented with a correct reasoning and with truthful data. This alone does not allow to follow your magnificent suggestion to use dirty debate tactics and false information to fight a wave of bullshit I would be subjected to should I entertain an exchange with a fascist, a nazi or a communist.
Secondly, it is impossible to fight in a logical way an argument which has been implanted in people minds through emotions. The only thing which can counter this seedling is an even stronger emotion and, as Germany has reached us with its re-education campaign following WWII, shun and shame are two perfectly fine instruments in this effort.
Thirdly, there is not an hypothetical in my phrasing (if they were to come to power) because they ARE already in power in states like Texas, Florida and other nations around the world and we can clearly see that, in order to preserve this democratically obtained power, they are dismantling the same democracy which gave them this power in the first place.
Lastly, your free use of terms such as “some”, “someone”, “a few” does present the issue as if it touched to a small number of people. May I remind you that 74 millions people voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 elections? Are they all fascists or nazis? Impossible, but still they are all ready to give a fascist the keys to the white house for a second term, so they are all part of the problem.
A problem which, I reiterate, cannot be solved by simply sitting down and calmly discussing with someone asking for the eradication of a minority for the betterment of his own life.
Abso-fucking-lutely not. Nazis were not present during the German people re-education campaign following WWII and still the German people were able to be taught about the horrors of nazism quite well.
To shun and shame someone it does not have to be present during the discussion, you can just point at it from a distance and explain the reasons behind the social stigma from afar.
If you take away the nazis chances to promote their ideology in the “marketplace of ideas” you are not giving them more power, you are taking the little power they have away from them and you are forcing them to be enclosed in their safe space where they won’t have any possibility to reproduce. Once they will die out of exhaustion or old age no new generation will be left to keep on their fight.
Nazi Germans were not present after WW2? That’s a crazy thing to say when they were the ones who elected the Nazi party in the first place.
We should probably establish who we are talking about here more precisely. Are we talking about literal Nazis who kill people or are we talking about those who are angry at minorities and dislike Jews? Is it even everyone who voted Trump? If it’s the latter, you’re gonna find that you can’t just use force, the % is too large.
Given that this seems to be more of an interrogation rather than a discussion I will return to answer your questions when you will start answering mine.
How would you have handled the Corona virus situation in respect to the anti-vax crowd? Would you have left possible viral carriers free to roam inside your society or would you have placed restrictions on their rights? Should you have chosen the former option how would you have handled the backlash of the weakest people in the population unable to take the vaccine? In case of the latter option which restrictions would you have put in place for these anti-science people?
Still waiting for a reply to my questions. Is it possible that everyone shilling for fascists is not able to have a normal discussion while being the most pro-debate person on a face value?
EveRybOdY dEseRvEs tO Be diScUsSed WitH
Bitch, I’d love to discuss with you but you run from our debate at the first chance
What you were talking about is a possibile solution to the climate crisis we are living through being discussed in the appropriate sites and by the appropriate people. I fail to see the extremism you are talking about, unless you consider the climate crisis an extrmism but this would qualify you as a complete moron…
Mate fucking what??? Did you just say blotting out THE SUN is a legitimate solution??? Not only is this literally not possible with today’s technology it would cause far more harm than good. The guy was a trump supporter who was saying that as a reason for not voting for Biden. No, blotting out the sun is not a possible solution nor is it being discussed by anyone who’s not insane. “Biden blotting out the sun” is the type of far right extremist propaganda I was pointing out. I don’t know how this isn’t obvious
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was talking to a climate scientist with years of experience in the field.
Again, I’m not saying this could be a viable solution as I don’t have the competences nor the entirety of the data at my disposal to technically evaluate its feasibility. Furthermore, this is not (yet) a confirmed plan nor is a currently implemented program, it is one of the many solutions being evaluated by EXPERTS in dedicated settings to try solving a crisis which may very well bring our species on the brink of extinction in a matter of decades. And I don’t know about you, but I tend to trust scientists and their expertise when talking about complex issues such as the climate crisis.
To me what is insane is that we have to be talking about such radical solutions to face an issue which may have been started to be challenged 50 or 60 years ago had the 7 sisters not lied to the politicians and the general public from the '60es.
If the far right extremists are taking the solution out if context presenting it as if we are talking to create a Matrix-like world is of course the usual far-right method of lying to the public presenting an issue in a partisan and extremist way and it’s a problem of their electors if they aren’t able to see beyond the lies they are being fed by these ignorant morons.
First, it assumes that all views are equally valid and worthy of debate, which is not the case. Some views, such as fascism, are inherently antidemocratic, violent, and oppressive, and do not deserve a platform in a free society. Fascism is not just a different opinion, but a political ideology and mass movement that seeks to exalt nation and often race above the individual and to forcibly suppress any opposition. Giving fascists a platform to spread their propaganda and recruit followers is not only irresponsible, but also dangerous, as history has shown.
So, what do you propose to do with fascists, racists, etc? Kill them? Debate is an opportunity to get those people, who are probably very dissatisfied with life, on the right path. Removal from platforms leads to them creating their own, isolated groups that get ever more radicalised. Every view, however dumb it may be, is worthy of debate or of at least being seen (people are free to ignore it). Not all views are equally valid, of course, but the validity of views is determined precisely during debate and argumentation. I don’t support fascism, racism, etc but if there’s a shortcut to remove those views from the public, the same shortcut can be used to remove anything! That’s a clear route to authoritarianism.
Removal from platforms leads to them creating their own, isolated groups that get ever more radicalised.
Yeah, but stormfront hasn’t had nearly the effect that allowing Nazi’s to post on reddit/twitter/etc has. You have to understand you can’t unpack on ‘humiliate’ these people. Look at Steven Crowder, absolutely humiliated and shamed as he ran away from any debate with Sam Seder. And what happened to his views? Just as high as they were before. The only thing that hits these people is getting them off large platforms.
As soon as they have a voice, it looks like an equal voice. Look at the absolute travesty that was the climate change ‘debate’. Giving climate change deniers a seat didn’t persuade everyone against it, it delayed the acceptance of fact be years.
I propose to kill them socially. Shun them from any collective gathering and let them live at the edge of society as they wish. Are you antivax? Very good, no medical treatments for you. If you don’t believe in vaccines I don’t see why you should be using antibacterials or chemo treatments.
You don’t like the laws protecting the right of minorities? Don’t ask for law enforcement to show up at your house should you ever be robbed or attacked. Either you respect the law or you don’t ask for its support when it’s convenient to you.
Are you a dickhead to others and cannot live normally around people different from you? Go live in the woods with someone akin to you and you alone.
We would very quickly loose all the deadbeats who are a menace to a civilised society and we wouldn’t even have to get physical with them.
But it is you, with your authoritarian way, which would force them to follow medical advices and practices these people do not want to follow. I personally am only giving in in their worldview and I am allowing them to live with the consequences of their actions.
Besides, I see that you are completely ignoring all my questions and point against your reasoning so I’m left to wonder what is this conversation bringing to the table. As far as I can see little to nothing, we do have a problem but you are just arguing to keep the status quo as it is. Let me remind you that this status quo has brought us to the situation we are in now and that, to avoid worse outcomes, we do need to change something in our society. Leaving everything as it is wouldn’t help in solving any issue as we are bring shown by the situations developing in red states and in countries around the world, so what would you want to do to improve the situation?
As a practical example, how would you have handled the COVID crisis and the anti-vax population? Give me a straight answer and no word salads please
Second,the argument ignores the fact that debate and persuasion are not always effective or possible when dealing with fascists. Fascists are not interested in rational dialogue or evidence, but in emotional manipulation and intimidation. They use lies, distortions, and appeals to fear and hatred to sway their audience. They also resort to violence and terrorism when they feel threatened or challenged. Trying to debate fascists only gives them more opportunities to spread their lies and hatred, and to silence or attack their critics.
Third, the argument overlooks the harm that allowing fascist views on a platform can cause to the people who are targeted by them. Fascists often scapegoat and demonize minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, women, Jews, Muslims, and other groups that they consider inferior or enemies. By giving fascists a platform, we are exposing these vulnerable groups to hate speech, harassment, discrimination, and even physical violence. We are also normalizing and legitimizing fascism as a valid political option, which can erode our democratic values and institutions.
Targeted harassment and physical harm should, of course, be prohibited, nobody is arguing againt that. Having randos post their intolerant views on social media doesn’t legitimize it in any way. It instead gives others a chance to talk them out of it.
Dawg this is like the fifth comment of yours I’ve seen defending fascists and wanting to give fascists a platform. No one wants your hateful, evil views here. GTFO.
And that’s a very bad thing, right? We should like fascits more, maybe they will then become our friends and we will all be able to live together peacefully in a perfect society.
Dawg this is like the fifth comment of yours I’ve seen defending fascists and wanting to give fascists a platform. No one wants your hateful, evil views here. GTFO. You guys already have a fascist social media platform. It’s called Twitter.
Well, you have to at least try. It will be effective to some extent. If they use distortion or intimidation, reveal it and make them look dumb. Emotional manipulation can be used by all sides. Of course, if they resort to violence, you are free to supress violence with violence.
Are you 12? Never dealt with fascists and bigots in real life? Debating then legitimizes their beliefs as valid and presents said views as just an alternative view, rather than the hateful, vile thing these beliefs actually are.
“In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.”
Maybe you didn’t notice but the civil war has already started. Just because you don’t see police forces and the army marching in the street it does not mean that there isn’t a war being wedged against minorities and the rule of law. And you are fighting for the bad side should this be not clear. The side which attacked Capitol Hill to keep a fascist orange in power might I add
Third, the argument overlooks the harm that allowing fascist views on a platform can cause to the people who are targeted by them. Fascists often scapegoat and demonize minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, women, Jews, Muslims, and other groups that they consider inferior or enemies. By giving fascists a platform, we are exposing these vulnerable groups to hate speech, harassment, discrimination, and even physical violence. We are also normalizing and legitimizing fascism as a valid political option, which can erode our democratic values and institutions.
Targeted harassment and physical harm should, of course, be prohibited, nobody is arguing againt that. Having randos post their intolerant views on social media doesn’t legitimize it in any way. It instead gives others a chance to talk them out of it.
What makes you think that these people, who are far and away more passionate and deeply entrenched in their belief can be convinced by giving them a platform? When we can’t even talk you out of not giving them any.
We should not legitimize these views by giving them a chance.
What would convince them? If they spend time on sites that are set up specifically for people with their views, they don’t get challenged much. On the other hand, if they talk to the rest of the world, there’s a carrot and a stick. I’m not saying don’t argue with them or don’t shit on them. I’m just saying don’t ban them unless they are calling for violence.
When we can’t even talk you out of not giving them any.
🤣 The difference is that my position is based on logic and theirs is based on emotions. Your argument is to say they are incorrigeable and there’s no point in talking to them and the only thing we can do is to shove the problem under the carpet. If you do that, the problem will only accumulate.
Your argument is to say they are incorrigeable and there’s no point in talking to them and the only thing we can do is to shove the problem under the carpet.
That also sums up my position.
If you do that, the problem will only accumulate.
First of all, I don’t think that’s true. If we ban advertisments for Coca Cola, we just push the problem under the carpet, and Coke fans will only accumulate?
That, of course, is nonsense. When everyone else is allowed to do normal marketing, while you are not, your product, idea, or ideology will slowly start to fade, fizzle, and die out. I mean, if what you are saying is true… Do the Nazis also think so? Do they understand your argument? Do they think that their groups, their views, and their representatives should remain banned? After all, your argument goes, this is what will make them “accumulate”.
For some reason the Nazis themselves don’t seem to want that. They want to be on national television. Literal Nazis want antisemitism on all channels, and holocaust denial taught in schools. They apparently don’t understand your argument, that ideologies accumulate and win, when you suppress them.
I suspect that Nazis are correct when they themselves reject your line of reasoning.
I’ve followed this philosophy in the past in communities I’ve moderated. Every single time, it has only served to taint the community with bad vibes and the fascist provoking trouble didn’t learn a single thing. Never again. Kick them all out, I’m not sacrificing the quality of my own spaces for the sake of making them a little bit not so much pieces of shit.
Suppressing different views on a platform doesn’t make them go away
We’re not talking about ‘different views’, we’re talking about violent, bigoted, misogynistic, racist views that advocate for the removal/killing of people based on what they were born as. There’s no ‘middle ground’ or ‘debate’ to be had with someone who holds those views.
They can be de-radicalised sure, but not by a bunch of strangers on the internet.
You’ve got a lot of replies, so this probably isn’t needed, but debate and persuasion only works if the views they hold are reasonable and if they came to those views through reason. It also legitimizes their views. Often “debate” is used as a tool to appear like they’re the more reasonable person by being the one who always asks questions, but they never answer anything. They always attack and they don’t defend any view (because they are not reasonably held, just useful), so they look like the more powerful persuasive point of view.
Basically, argument only works with reasonable people. The alt-right generally are not reasonable people and will use your arguing to make you appear stupid and them appear powerful to recruit more people. Don’t argue with the alt-right. Only humiliate them in the hopes others see how bad they are.
It doesn’t even need to be an active effort of persuasion, just having them exist closely (in a somewhat censored way if everyone has them muted/defederated) is also good.
There was a recent study that paid trump supporters to simply watch CNN instead of Fox and they got pretty good results on moderating them down. You can’t discount how people, to some degree, absorb the views of those around them. Even just seeing reasonable takes can sometimes get the gears turning in someone’s head that could result in them thinking differently days or months down the line. I can say I’ve had my mind changed in similar ways, although I’ve never been a radical bigot.
Sure but they clearly aren’t swayed by logic, facts, etc. Because everytime they’re proven wrong, they run to twitter/Reddit where people who tell them what they want to hear are platformed.
Pre-this they had websites like Stormfront or whatever, but that was it. Small websites with small user bases. Now they have access to millions of people, and their lies are awfully nice sounding if you’re a (usually) young, white, male who is struggling. It’s not capitalism’s fault, it’s that damn immigrant down the block. It’s not their shit attitude that drives women away, it’s “feminism”. Then they grift and weaponize these kids, and they self-reinforce through the massive platform they’re on.
All of the ‘debate’ and talking hasn’t stopped Peterson from convincing tens of thousands, if not more, people that women should be given to them by the government. I’m not sure this internet debate is actually causing people to realize when they’re wrong so much as give them a bunch of “that’s ok, it’s those damn libruls!” back pats when they get eviscerated in yet another post online.
Dude, they’re gonna exist anyway. Banning them does not change them. It just … mutes them from you. They’re going to go to their next lemmy/reddit/twitter/neighborhood/bar/whatever and say the same things.
Radicalizing them and getting away from them, or if you’re a very great diplomatic person and persuasive and charismatic to change their minds, is the best you can do. But banning them, just makes them make their own echo-circle ANYWAYS. You’re not changing anything. You’re literally making things worse by banning them. You just make your place seem “safer”, but these people are gonna co-exist in a another circle anyways. You’re not banishing them from existence.
HEY GUYS LET’S ALLOW KLAN MEMBERS, NAZIS, AND AL QUAEDA IN HERE BECAUSE THEY EXIST ANYWAYS SO WE SHOULD GIVE THEM A MAINSTREAM PLATFORM SO THEY CAN SPREAD THEIR SHITTY VIEWS AND TRY TO RECRUIT MORE HATE MONGERERS.
Do you see how fucking stupid you sound?
Bigots, Nazis, and hate mongerers of all sorts do not deserve to be heard or seen by civilized society. They deserve to be excluded, banished from society, and preferably taken out back to put the rest of us out of their misery.
Please be more respectful to my opinion. I’ve got mine you’ve got yours. I didnt call your opinion stupid and neither I won’t. Don’t start a hostile conversation. I’m not here for that.
Yes, allow them doesn’t mean allow them to say whatever they want to say. Hatespeech like “I hate you because you’re white/black/chinese/whatever ethnicity” or “you’re a white nazi fuck” or “you’re a black scum” is obviously non-constructive hate-speech that does not provide any value. It only makes everything around you worse and brings more chaos and protests and riots.
Allow them to co-exist means allow-them to co-exist peacefully, by common rules that do not provide hate-speech to each other and provide our opinion in a respectful manner. Unlike you do for example. You literally shout to give your opinion with CAPS LOCK and just called my opinion stupid . Do you know how you sound to a reasonable person? Aggravated. Disrespectful and most of all uneducated. Because you do not know how to provide your opinion in a respectful manner. I’m not trying to insult you, it’s just that’s how uneducated people say their opinion. By shouting at each other. And the result? Is nothing. Just more frustrated people around you and you go home, play at your PS5 Shadow of the Colossus once again, and take your anger on the console and next day begins. But the anger still lives inside you and maybe to the other person you just spoke to as well. You achieved nothing constructive, you’re just goading.
Anyway. Someone living among us doesn’t mean living with their rules or saying whatever they want against anybody. Obviously Nazi-sht (yes it autocorrects it lol) and non-constructive conversations help nobody. Just like your attempt at calling my opinion stupid.
Someone living among us doesn’t mean living with their rules or saying whatever they want against anybody.
Lol and lmao, go tell this to the people living in Florida and Texas my dude.
You centrists giving the same respect to any ideology passing before your eyes are really the most uneducated and useless people when talking about how to solve the extremism problem in our societies. You just argue to keep the status quo as it is or, even worse, to give more right to expression to people who would happily take this right away from you and everybody else should they reach any power at all.
Please keep your opinion to yourself, there are people working to solve problems, they don’t need folks like you in their lives.
You’re not changing anything. You’re literally making things worse by banning them.
I think this is the misunderstaning here. There is no “changing anything”. This is not the purpose of the exercise. The purpose of keeping certain views out of public discourse, is to limit their exposure, in the same way that quarantine limits exposure to infection.
You can have a Nazi who sneezes his ideas into the minds of everyone on national television. That will infect a lot of people. Or you can have a Nazi who has no outlet, but meeting in a basement with his 5 friends, talking about Nazi things among themselves. Those are two extremes. Which is better? What situation should we aspire to?
Of course we are not banishing Nazis from existence. But we are banishing Nazis from looking very cool on national television. If you let them, they will try to do that. Should we let them? What is the benefit in letting them do that?
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason into.
Like the only way to deradicalize someone has been if someone close to them IRL talks to them or if some figure that radicalized them got absolutely embarassed publically for their views. Social media has done nothing but radicalized these people further.
It’s not reasonable in the slightest. Were talking about Nazis here. Their is no debating with them. While you wait patiently and try to explain your point they’ll be taking advantage and advancing their agenda. An agenda, I’ll remind you, where they literally want a large portion of society to be exterminated.
Cool. Let’s double down on dogma and orthodoxy. That’s sure to fix it. Let’s also be sure to remind people that disagree with us that they are in fact, bad people.
Now that I have solved All The Problems imma go outside.
It’s not about disagreement. Disagreement is when you think chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla ice cream when obviously vanilla ice cream is superior. Promoting hate groups and genocidal monsters is not just a disagreement.
Because it’s important to be able to discuss ideas and disagree about things, and lemmy is a place where I hope to do just that. I can’t do that though if we collectively conflate the badness of ideas with the apparent badness of the people who hold those ideas. Ideas don’t have feelings, so let’s be as scathing as we see fit towards bad ideas, without trying to supress their existence, or create idea tribes.
In the context of the original post, sure, I can discuss shortcomings of communism with you all you want, but as soon as you start to glorify monsters like Stalin or Mao or other mass-murderers that just hide behind communism, I’m gonna block you.
Agreed, Stalin and Mao represent some spectacularly bad ideas that have been undeniably harmful, and I haven’t seen a convincing argument in their favour. Bulk banning bad ideas as “hate speech” bothers me greatly though. I much prefer a situation where each individual can just block the things they don’t want to see.
Let’s also be sure to remind people that disagree with us that they are in fact, bad people
Yes, fascists are bad peoples.
User who do hate speech are also bad people.
The society already decided how to handle it: the law doesn’t try to persuade these peoples but punish them.
Doubling down on punishing fascism and hate speech is not dogma or orthodoxy, but having ethics.
We have better ideas, they have worse ideas. Right? So let’s promote our good ideas and argue against the bad ideas. Turning idea-having into a kind of values-laden team sport isn’t useful.
If their ideas involve harming people or, y’know, genocide, then yes, their ideas are bad. People shouldn’t have to argue their case for why they shouldn’t be killed.
Agreed - terrible ideas. And we can all individually choose to ban people espousing such nonsense in the interest of protecting ourselves. I’m only objecting to that decision being made on my behalf. It’s not effective as a strategy to reduce the spread of these bad ideas, or as a way of demonstrating how much better the other ideas are. Not sure why this is such a controversial point - used to be a fairly mundane position to hold.
Except historically that isn’t true, giving them a platform has consistently resulted in fascists unifying disparate groups, spreading their views via lies and manipulation, and being viewed as more legitimate just because they have been given a voice, even if just by default. They then leverage that platform for their own purposes, degrading actual free speech. If you give people who are actively working to erode free speech a platform, then they will take that platform and dismantle it piece by piece. So if you want it to remain an actual free speech platform, you have to disallow groups that seek to destroy it. The decision isn’t being made on your behalf, it’s being made on behalf of the platform itself, and the people who would be harmed by fascist movements gaining more momentum. It would be like building a little bug house made of wood, and then allowing termites to move in. Except at least termites serve a purpose in nature and aren’t acting maliciously, unlike nazis.
Obviously, bans work on a website. We’re talking about a country though. It’s a closed space.
Are we talking about literal Nazis that kill people or just those who dislike minorities? Maybe even everyone who voted Trump? If so, you’re gonna find that it’s impossible to solve the problem by pure force because that’s half the population!
Post WW2 it worked because, in fact, they lost the war.
Debate and persuasion are great- until they have someone better at debating and more persuasive than you. There’s a reason why Goebbels was so powerful in Nazi Germany.
I’m saying then you gotta get better at it. Your proposal, violence, works against a small number of people. I’m talking about a massive chunk of the population. Not literal Nazis who go around killing people, but everyone who dislikes minorities. You can’t just force them to think what you want, the % of the population is too large.
There’s no guarantee they won’t have someone better than you. You can’t be assured of that. All you are doing with a debate is giving them a chance to legitimize their position.
Authoritarianism? No. Because it’s a problem with a single person in power or a small group. Here, I’m talking about the large number of rather passive opinionated people.
Last time my government said that “The solution is not force, its dialog and debate” was a year ago when trying to dialog with terrorists, it definitely did not end good…
I’m in favor of liberty of expression, but there are really some humans that are insane…
Mmmm. No. Because those people will never follow the rules, will never act in good faith. Could Poland in the 30s hope to ‘sit down and have a good debate’ with the nazis? Fuck no. The nazis then are no different than the nazis now, it’s just that the ones we have today are stupid as shit.
You stomp out Nazis and extremists like the cockroaches they are. They need to know they don’t have a seat at the table . They don’t get to express their worldview in public spaces. They should always be reminded that we bent over the fascists once before and we will do it again. The only good fascist is a little bitch fascist that’s afraid to leave their house in case they catch an elbow. Make Nazis afraid again.
Except the nazi playbook literally involves invading spaces that support free speech and commandeering them in order to silence other groups and give themselves a platform to radicalize others more easily. If you truly value free speech then you don’t want to give nazis or neo-nazis a platform.
Look up the paradox of tolerance. It’s not about ideas, it’s about the battle of “free speech” and how tolerating everything leads to nazism/fascism, if it’s prevelent enough in a society. Not all speech should be protected, basically. If you agree to let nazis have their platform as a right then you will lose to them in the end.
In a battle ground of ideas, Nazis cheat. That’s the problem. Their methodology fundamentally involves making sure that the “battle ground” favours them above anyone else.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
It’s not like breaking the rules in monopoly, but abusing the tools of discourse to deceive, manipulate, and bring people down a pipeline.
For one, they lie. They lie, lie, lie. Nazi’s lie more naturally than they breath. What they want more than anything is a platform to spread those lies to people who are vulnerable to those lies. Hitler didn’t seize power, he was elected into it.
They want a platform, any platform, for mainly 2 reasons, neither of which are for the sake of logical debate or upholding freedom of speech:
to spread their propaganda, which again is full of manipulative lies that feed on pre-existing biases. People don’t become radicalized from nothing, they’re fed a specific narrative that leads them down a road of reasoning that feels, to those people, like it makes sense, until they’re in too deep to be willing to consider that they’re wrong.
to UNIFY disparate groups that share their views or are at least willing to brush elbows with the nazi party to achieve their ends. This unification of disparate groups can lend them a lot more strength and influence than they’d otherwise have if they were kept separate. They want a platform that let’s them, essentially, stand up on stage with a microphone going “alright, hands up if you share some of these views and are willing to go along with the rest as long as you get what you want in the end”. Now they won’t state the worst of their views outright, they’ll just couch them in nicer terms, but people who share them will recognize them. And even those who don’t agree with the extreme versions of those views are just targets ripe for radicalization.
So then not only do they have a platform, but they have larger numbers flocking to this platform, which gives their voices more weight, and makes them feel more supported in their views. It makes them seem more reasonable, more legitimate. It makes them more appealing. They don’t just stand up at the podium and say “gas the Jews”, because they’re not being honest. They say stuff like “I just think we should be concerned about how many Jewish people are in positions of power, using that power to their own ends. I just think it’s strange, that’s all. That doesn’t mean I’m advocating violence. I’m just asking questions, I just have concerns.” and they’re not advocating violence technically, yet. Not in public at least. And if you say" hey that sounds awfully anti-Semitic" they deflect. “it’s just an observation of a fact. Apparently facts are anti-Semitic now”. They have any number of excuses ready for why their views don’t actually count as being anti-Semitic, and if you say otherwise, we’ll, you’re just trying to silence them. Because that’s the thing, once they’ve established themselves, they can start saying that anyone calling them out is against free speech, and use that to start shutting down dessenting voices. They don’t actually care about discussing their views, most of the time they know that their views are extreme, that’s why they couch them in nicer, less honest terms all the time. They don’t care. They just want to gain as much influence and power as possible, and they’ll use any platform they can get their hands on to do it. If you aren’t aware of their tactics and how they work, then it can be difficult to spot what they’re doing, and most people haven’t done research on the subject and thus won’t recognize the dog whistles and manipulation. And their targets aren’t always the Jews, sometimes they’re other groups, like trans people, or left wing groups, or the gays, etc. They might even pick and choose based on whatever gets them more traction at the time. Jews are just their most well known and popular target. But the nazis ultimate goal as a movement/idiology isn’t specifically to get rid of Jews, it’s to gain power. The Jews were just an easy target at the height of their power.
Some examples of dog whistles that have been particularly relevant in recent years include calling an entire demographic “groomers” or “pedophiles” and associating then with pedophilia. Claiming that they’re just concerned about protecting a specific vulnerable demographic (this demographic may or may not actually be vulnerable) from a perceived threat. Their favourite demographic is commonly women, children, or in the case of more racist actors, they may be trying to protect their heritage, their genes, their population, their jobs, etc. People who tout the great replacement theory are heavily intertwined with nazi ideology for example, if they’re not just outright nazis. The target of their ire doesn’t really matter, they just need some sort of enemy or boogieman to unite people against, including people who might not otherwise cooperate or associate with them. See how nazis have been cozying up with terf groups, or religious groups, or anti-abortion groups for example.
They especially like to take advantage of economic or political strife to get their feet in the door. That strife creates desperation, makes people more susceptible to propaganda that promises a solution and gives them an easy enemy to fight against and a strong group to follow and team up with. Then that group promises that they’re the ones who see the dangers of said enemy, and will thus be the ones to actually do something about it.
Hitler didn’t get popular in a day. He had to build his credibility over time, and giving someone a platform makes them appear more credible no matter how ridiculous you think their claims might seem. And if they catch the ears of enough important people, then they can really utilize their influence.
They aren’t coming to these places of free speech to debate in good faith, they’re coming to find targets, victims, and likeminded people who will group together with them. They’re coming for visibility, and to have more ears to spread their lies to. And those lies can be very convincing to people who are in an easily influenced state of mind, like after a crisis, or an upheaval in their way of life, or if they feel like they’re threatened in some way. They’re master manipulators, gaslighters, and abusers. Maybe not every individual member, but the movement as a whole isn’t the obvious guy carrying a nazi flag and yelling “death to all Jews” in front of government buildings on the news. More often than not those guys are used as a smoke screen, so they can point at those guys and say “see? I’m nothing like him, I’m much more reasonable. So obviously, I can’t be a nazi.” even though they absolutely agree with those guys and feel the same way privately.
Providing a platform for free speech and debate only works if everyone who comes to that platform also believes in free speech, and is acting in good faith. Nazis, as a rule, do not act in good faith. Their goal is to commandeer your platform to gain power and erode the rights of others until they are the ones standing at the top and controlling what is allowed to be said. Any rare case of someone who aligns with nazi views but actually wants to debate and believes in free speech is, in the eyes of nazis, a recruit waiting to happen. Letting those people expose themselves to more organized nazis is basically throwing them to the wolves and asking for them to be radicalized.
There’s more, a lot more, too much for me to really go over in a single comment, so I recommend looking into the methods that the nazis have used both in the past as well as recent years. You will start seeing a concerning pattern in their behaviour and methods, as well as in the typical outcome if you let them weasel their way onto your platform.
My first instinct was ignore your giant ass comment, because it’s probably full of crazy.
Then I thought “You know what, it’s Lemmy. Fresh start, and people seem to be more genuine here. Let’s be kind and actually properly read and reply.”
So I read your comment, and my first instinct was right. Jesus fuck mate, go touch grass. Go get laid. Get some help. Do something, besides hanging out in whatever insane echo chamber you’re in, because that’s not helping you. That giant comment of yours is not normal, not in size, and not in content.
Also, you’re basically repeating yourself over and over again, rewording the same few sentences in different ways, and padding the length like a highschooler with a 3 page essay to write.
Oh I’m sorry, I forgot people like you only understand buzzwords and article titles. I didn’t consider dumbing down my response detailing the intricacies of a complex political idiology that has a long and complicated history, but I guess I just overestimated your intelligence. My bad!
Yeah I recognized them from their transphobic comments in another thread. Transphobes and nazis, name a more iconic duo. Still, better to have the info out there than not, for anyone else who might benefit from it.
@BelieveRevolt You too, get in here, I ain’t writing this much for one person to look at.
Okay, you’re repeating yourself a lot in that comment, but I’ll go paragraph by paragraph, and reply individually. I have nothing better to do until my next meeting anyways.
Oh let me count the ways.
For one, they lie. They lie, lie, lie. Nazi’s lie more naturally than they breath. What they want more than anything is a platform to spread those lies to people who are vulnerable to those lies. Hitler didn’t seize power, he was elected into it.
Cool, I don’t see how lying makes Nazis unique, but sure. Also not seeing how that would let them win.
They want a platform, any platform, for mainly 2 reasons, neither of which are for the sake of logical debate or upholding freedom of speech:
to spread their propaganda, which again is full of manipulative lies that feed on pre-existing biases. People don’t become radicalized from nothing, they’re fed a specific narrative that leads them down a road of reasoning that feels, to those people, like it makes sense, until they’re in too deep to be willing to consider that they’re wrong.
to UNIFY disparate groups that share their views or are at least willing to brush elbows with the nazi party to achieve their ends. This unification of disparate groups can lend them a lot more strength and influence than they’d otherwise have if they were kept separate. They want a platform that let’s them, essentially, stand up on stage with a microphone going “alright, hands up if you share some of these views and are willing to go along with the rest as long as you get what you want in the end”. Now they won’t state the worst of their views outright, they’ll just couch them in nicer terms, but people who share them will recognize them. And even those who don’t agree with the extreme versions of those views are just targets ripe for radicalization.
For number 1, you’re basically saying everyone is already a pseudo nazi
Number two, Nazis are diverse? And they lie to unite them?
So then not only do they have a platform, but they have larger numbers flocking to this platform, which gives their voices more weight, and makes them feel more supported in their views. It makes them seem more reasonable, more legitimate. It makes them more appealing. They don’t just stand up at the podium and say “gas the Jews”, because they’re not being honest. They say stuff like “I just think we should be concerned about how many Jewish people are in positions of power, using that power to their own ends. I just think it’s strange, that’s all. That doesn’t mean I’m advocating violence. I’m just asking questions, I just have concerns.” and they’re not advocating violence technically, yet. Not in public at least. And if you say" hey that sounds awfully anti-Semitic" they deflect. “it’s just an observation of a fact. Apparently facts are anti-Semitic now”. They have any number of excuses ready for why their views don’t actually count as being anti-Semitic, and if you say otherwise, we’ll, you’re just trying to silence them. Because that’s the thing, once they’ve established themselves, they can start saying that anyone calling them out is against free speech, and use that to start shutting down dessenting voices. They don’t actually care about discussing their views, most of the time they know that their views are extreme, that’s why they couch them in nicer, less honest terms all the time. They don’t care. They just want to gain as much influence and power as possible, and they’ll use any platform they can get their hands on to do it. If you aren’t aware of their tactics and how they work, then it can be difficult to spot what they’re doing, and most people haven’t done research on the subject and thus won’t recognize the dog whistles and manipulation. And their targets aren’t always the Jews, sometimes they’re other groups, like trans people, or left wing groups, or the gays, etc. They might even pick and choose based on whatever gets them more traction at the time. Jews are just their most well known and popular target. But the nazis ultimate goal as a movement/idiology isn’t specifically to get rid of Jews, it’s to gain power. The Jews were just an easy target at the height of their power.
Again, banging on about lies, and anyone who mentions Jews in that way gets banned (Or at least they should be) The tactic is literally just asking leading questions. 387 words for that? Learn to write concisely.
Some examples of dog whistles that have been particularly relevant in recent years include calling an entire demographic “groomers” or “pedophiles” and associating then with pedophilia. Claiming that they’re just concerned about protecting a specific vulnerable demographic (this demographic may or may not actually be vulnerable) from a perceived threat. Their favourite demographic is commonly women, children, or in the case of more racist actors, they may be trying to protect their heritage, their genes, their population, their jobs, etc. People who tout the great replacement theory are heavily intertwined with nazi ideology for example, if they’re not just outright nazis. The target of their ire doesn’t really matter, they just need some sort of enemy or boogieman to unite people against, including people who might not otherwise cooperate or associate with them. See how nazis have been cozying up with terf groups, or religious groups, or anti-abortion groups for example.
That ‘demographic’ are drag queens and teach young kids that being feminine is about over done make-up and dresses. It’s completely antithetical to feminism, and is dangerous to young minds. When we don’t want our kids being exposed to misogyny, y’all cry oppression and act like you’re entitled to our children. Caring that much about access to kids sounds like pedophilia to me. And yes, children are a vulnerable demographic, what the fuck are you on? Also, only dogs can hear dog whistles. It’s basically saying “My opponent didn’t actually say this, but it’s convenient for them to have said this, so I’ll pretend they did anyway”
They especially like to take advantage of economic or political strife to get their feet in the door. That strife creates desperation, makes people more susceptible to propaganda that promises a solution and gives them an easy enemy to fight against and a strong group to follow and team up with. Then that group promises that they’re the ones who see the dangers of said enemy, and will thus be the ones to actually do something about it.
Literally every political group ever does that. “Oh here’s a problem, and to solve this problem, elect us!” That’s not unique. And you’re still banging on about lies.
Hitler didn’t get popular in a day. He had to build his credibility over time, and giving someone a platform makes them appear more credible no matter how ridiculous you think their claims might seem. And if they catch the ears of enough important people, then they can really utilize their influence.
Sure, but that’s not unique. No politician is popular immediately, and they all try to bend the ears of important people. You’re not cheating by doing that, you’re supposed to do that. 52 words wasted.
They aren’t coming to these places of free speech to debate in good faith, they’re coming to find targets, victims, and likeminded people who will group together with them. They’re coming for visibility, and to have more ears to spread their lies to. And those lies can be very convincing to people who are in an easily influenced state of mind, like after a crisis, or an upheaval in their way of life, or if they feel like they’re threatened in some way. They’re master manipulators, gaslighters, and abusers. Maybe not every individual member, but the movement as a whole isn’t the obvious guy carrying a nazi flag and yelling “death to all Jews” in front of government buildings on the news. More often than not those guys are used as a smoke screen, so less obvious nazis can point at those guys and say “see? I’m nothing like him, I’m much more reasonable. So obviously, I can’t be a nazi.” even though they absolutely agree with those guys and feel the same way privately.
Right, you’re basically saying they’re lying and being manipulative. Again. 175 words wasted.
Providing a platform for free speech and debate only works if everyone who comes to that platform also believes in free speech, and is acting in good faith. Nazis, as a rule, do not act in good faith. Their goal is to commandeer your platform to gain power and erode the rights of others until they are the ones standing at the top and controlling what is allowed to be said. It doesn’t matter how much you try to point out flaws in their logic, or provide actual rational arguments. Engaging with their talking points is meaningless. They’ll only move the goalposts, or use the most vague convoluted stances that aren’t easily engaged with or debunked. Or they’ll just claim that you’re wrong or lying. To them you’re just a tool they’re using to get what they want. By engaging with their ideas, even to point out their issues, just make them seem more legitimate. After all, you don’t argue with a crazy person, or an evil person. There’s no point in reasoning with people who can’t be reasoned with. Therefore, Nazis must be reasonable to some degree, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth debating or arguing with them, or giving them a platform to do so. Any rare case of someone who aligns with nazi views but actually wants to debate and believes in free speech is, in the eyes of nazis, a recruit waiting to happen. Letting those people expose themselves to more organized nazis is basically throwing them to the wolves and asking for them to be radicalized. Very rarely are these people successfully deradicalized in a public forum, and it’s much easier for the Nazis to convince them that they’re right actually than it is for others to convince them that they are wrong and that their views are bad. You will have a better chance of deradicalizing them in private.
So basically, you’re anti-free speech because Nazis are manipulative? Now there’s a hot take.
There’s more, a lot more, too much for me to really go over in a single comment, so I recommend looking into the methods that the nazis have used both in the past as well as recent years. You will start seeing a concerning pattern in their behaviour and methods, as well as in the typical outcome if you let them weasel their way onto your platform.
More? Man, learn to write concisely. You took 1,496 words to write: “Nazis cheat by being manipulative”
Oh I see now why you’re so adamant about giving nazis a platform, you identify with a lot of their views. You spout a lot of the same lies, whether it’s about drag Queen’s or trans people (I recognize you from your bigoted comments in another thread). Just goes to show how effective those lies are on people like you, assuming you aren’t maliciously spreading them that is. Hanlon’s razor and all that.
Oh my sweet summer child. Look up Magnus Hirschfield and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. Transphobia and homophobia are a fundamental aspect of nazi idiology, and always have been. It might be prudent to take a good long look at your views and where you got them from. Anti-trans groups and nazis have been holding hands for a long, long time.
Any censorship always boils down to there being somebody who defines what “Far”-anything is.
Judging by the political speech of the “mainstream” in lots of countries (you know the ones: members of parties which have alternated in power, as duopoly with one other “mainstream” party, for more than half a century, with corruption cases blowing up left and right or just a subverted Judiciary and Press), “far” is anybody who says “we should have a true Democracy were all votes count the same, Political decision making is transparent and the Judiciary and Press Pillars of Democracy are Independent and work”.
I frankly don’t really know if or were a line on speech should be drawn, but I am absolutelly certain the whole thing will be subverted to silence way more than merely nazis. I mean, all it takes is to look at what the “terrorist” label and even anti-terror legislation are used for nowadays (for example members of the Greenparty in the UK were under surveilance approved through anti-terror legislation).
All this to say that your take on this seems dangerously simplistic in light of the history of abuse when it comes to limiting speech.
That same liberal trash-think is what enables left leaning ideologies to have their own platforms despite the consistent problematic history with minorities.
Are you willing to admit that an ideology and an implementation are two different things? Right-wing capitalists cheat minorities out of literally everything constantly, and on an ongoing basis; up to and including their very lives.
So, that’s not really the burn on leftist ideas you think it is.
Are you willing to admit that it’s enough of an argument for the right to ban it using the same powers you are proposing here? That’s why it’s problematic and they’ve used this playbook before.
Smaller communities with little in the way of minorities are hardly great examples. Arguably, their inability to get along with other ethnic groups and subsequent splits in their creation supports the opposite idea.
The fact that minority communities split off to form societies with left policies in no way supports the idea that they treated minorities within their own group better. Giving more economic power to the majority (even in a true democratic socialist system) simply means that they hold more power over the minorities. It is absolutely what has happened in every example that’s scaled and I can point to multiple genocides to support it.
It is why most intellectual left academics focus on anarchism which has it’s own issues in terms of rights protections, productivity, and central coordination in a system without a market.
Just like fascism needs a unified society including corporatocracy to succeed, so too does left ideals need resource control. The flaw is baked into the system at it’s core and nothing eliminates people’s natural tendencies to be exclusionary. Every society deals with it. Fascism deals with it by eliminating it. Left societies deal with it through resource control. Liberal societies enable base protections of property that show clear indications and recourse when rights are violated.
There are clearer takeaways and examples if we focus on one ideology within these groupings ie Nazism vs Francoism, classic Leninism vs modern anarchist thought, or classical liberalism vs neoliberalism.
Ultimately, if a country like the United States of America were to magically change to a classic communism model overnight with no bloodshed, you didn’t make it less racist. You just handed the majority more power over the minority. If your worldview includes that education would make the difference, it could and should under any model. 90% of the time when true left leaning folks say they want change in the system, it’s because they want to force through their ideals, not that there’s anything built into their proposed system to actually keep it that way.
This is largely why the American left shifted to a reform mindset in the '60s. Not only were they not getting the results they wanted with their approach, they were watching the atrocities happening in the East combined with the civil rights movement and decided that maybe they shouldn’t be fighting to give more power to the majority without some kind of economic check on power. It’s why you started seeing institutional changes combined with legal protections, education, and social shifts instead of radical changes. There is no radical change that can fix things, it takes a wholistic approach.
All of this is drivel. None of your situations or theoreticals make any sense. You are so politically confused.
nothing eliminates people’s natural tendencies to be exclusionary.
If this was your entire argument you could have just said it. Now we can just disagree on this one pivotal point and move on. People aren’t inherently racist or “exclusionary.”
Politics is not binary (everything not my opinion is Nazi). Your claims here don’t actually say anything other than you refuse to actually look up the history and philosophies of liberalism and left movements.
Well, at least you have focused in on the thing that almost no one will agree with you on and is demonstrably false through hundreds of years of research.
Because misery loves company. People like to feel like they belong to something and if they already harbor some type of hate towards a minority demographic it’s very easy for them to sympathize and congregate with like minded groups. Ever seen American History X?
The thing about having them in plain site, is that it makes it easier for people with mental illnesses to find them, be brainwashed and join them. I just wondering if driving them back under a rock and out of public eye makes it harder for their numbers and ideals to grown and thrive.
I was not suggesting that we abandon people with mental illness. I’m saying it’s probably not a good idea to give a public platform to nazis and white supremacy. Sure they can set up their own Lemmy instance and talk about their irrational nazi bullshit to each other but the rest of us should immediately defederate and block them.
If the dev team totally jumps the shark users can always fork the code from one of the earlier releases, gaining the benefit of all the work Lemmy devs have done already.
Strictly speaking if people are upset enough about this they could fork today.
In French, baguette means “long stick”. The bread name comes from this meaning, as it is a long, thin kind of bread :) We also call drum sticks “baguette”, as well as anything wooden, long and thin, like a conductor baton or a magic wand!
No matter what it is you do or how well you do it, even if you do it for free, a specific subset of motherfuckers will still act like you owe them something.
That’s awesome of you and I hope, while those people are unlikely to disappear from your life, your memories of ungrateful feedback last no longer than they would for a salamander.
20 men being able to have a stable place for a few months is amazing. If every man who gets involved manages 20 saves before he gets taken out, the whole thing could still work.
It’s not the fun numbers like “helped 10,000,000 men then died happily of natural causes at a ripe old age”, but 20:1 is still pretty good.
And let’s be real here. It’s not like he would have avoided suicide for longer if he hadn’t tried to help. Dude was probably with us far longer as a result of his own stepping up.
Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
Catholics go one step further. Both the translation and the tradition of interpreting the translation is divinely inspired. Protestants sometimes vaguely point to something like that but most realize that if they follow the logic train of sacred tradition they should be Catholic or Orthodox.
The book was produced by the tradition. If the tradition is junk, then why would the book not be junk too?
This is one thing that atheists often get wrong about Catholicism. Catholics don’t believe sola scriptura, the Protestant principle that all Christian tradition is to be rooted in the text of the Bible. Thus, “Bible contradictions” and the like are not rebuttals to Catholic views the way they are to “fundamentalist” Protestant views.
I'm an atheist ex protestant, but I generally agree with that theological view. I think Protestantism is very inconsistent in that regard and most arguments amount to hand waving. In the end, though, all denominations pick and choose when councils had sufficient authority to be binding tradition. Unless they're gnostics or some other type of anti-pauIine Christian guess.
Unless they realize that each new interpretation is Divinely inspired. In which case the most recent one is the truest, Tradition is dead, and also the Divine changes Her mind a lot.
Evangelicals are all about that inspired, literal, complete, and inerrant word of God stuff. 99% of all evangelical churches have that as a mission statement on their website.
It's a two-thousand-year-long multilingual game of Telephone. How much is it even possible is left from what was originally written? (And none of it contemporary to when it supposedly happened.)
Textual critics are fairly confident that a fair amount of the texts of the New Testament were reliably copied until we get to the first extant manuscripts, and for the stuff that is very obviously messed up, they have a decent set of analytical tools that help them retroject the likeliest original wording. Not perfect, but decent.
And now we have even better scientific tools that allow us to retroject all the miracles, incorrect dates, absurdly inaccurate numbers/measurements, and the authenticity (very foundation) of it’s stories. Proving that it is all fiction.
Reminder: Until the 1800s no Christian believed that the world was older than about 6000. If you went back in time and spoke to literally any Christian at that time and said you were both Christian and believed that the earth was billions of years old they would definitely say that you’re a liar: You’re not a Christian. You would be declared a heretic.
There is a difference between saying that one translation is more or less accurate than another and saying that the story that is written is true or not. Don’t let your feelings about the subject impact your assessment of the literary work around it.
You’re right: As a literary work is absolute garbage. The chapters are all over the place and it constantly repeats itself, telling the same stories in a slightly different way with no added information or useful insights.
It even makes it incredibly difficult to suspend your disbelief by stating impossible things as simple facts with no explanation whatsoever like someone being swallowed by a whale, fitting two of every animal on earth into a single boat, etc.
This gives me the odd realization that, were a method to travel through time ever discovered, there’s a chance one use-case for it might be a religious group traveling back to the origin point of their religious texts to correct errors that have made their way in since the original versions were written or spoken.
It’s been written. I can’t remember the name or author, but the crucifixion was very popular, and in the story may have accounted for the large crowds that day.
But then you could just go back and witness the events that the book tries to describe, so the book itself becomes irrelevant outside of just archaeology phd work.
Imagining the idea of a deeply religious person going back in time over and over again, going further and further back looking for Adam and Eve and finding very modern-looking humans going all the way back 200,000 years…
Nah, they’d probably give up after going back around 50,000 years and accidentally infecting the entire human population with the common cold, nearly killing off the species.
I think it’s a better name. My only issue is that it is a better name for what happened in Haiti, where the enslaved rose up, defeated their masters, got revenge, and formed a nation.
I wish the nation was more of a success today, but it should still be celebrated as a victory for humanity.
Very true, which is why I made sure to clarify in my title. It’s an arrogant American thing to call it the civil war… although I suppose the English say the same thing about one of their many civil wars.
Wouldn’t every country refer to the civil war that happened in their country as the civil war. Assuming that they only had one … we’ve had a few in the UK so they have their own names.
I genuinely had to check Wikipedia to remind myself which civil war we call the civil war. It’s the Roundheads apparently, and even that’s split into the civil war I, II and III. Ridiculous.
Don’t even dignify it with calling it a war, it was an act of treason and ought be looked at as nothing more than a national betrayal made in the name of paranoid slave oligarchs
Clarify which of the two you’re talking about at the start of your post. The post you’re replying to is mostly discussing Haiti and your comment made be do a double-take.
Me too. You can mostly thank the US and especially France for that tbh. They both extorted Haiti for a debt of lost “property” owed to France. And by “property” I mean formerly enslaved human beings! That shit went on for 122 years and the first annual payment “owed” was of SIX TIMES the annual revenue of Haiti! 🤬
I applied in Canada to a Law Enforcement program with a past-secondary institution.
I was told by a VERY senior member of the force (family friend) that I was simply too smart for the rank and file and was consequently turned down. He said “…they don’t want people who will think for themselves and question their orders. The whole point is to have force who will follow the rules without question. You don’t fit that mold”. The “rules” in this case is really just the police culture, and status quo.
The man who told me this, rose to Police Chief of a Major Canadian city from uniformed officer. Retired now.
I believe him.
Dumb soldiers who apply force when told. That’s what they want, …mostly.
Yes it is. If it was named after dubya it would be funnier. Still the worst levels of the old testament, but funny, in an ironic, we are all doomed way.
It’s fun to think you’re political opposites are dumb. But in reality the dude did exactly what he and his squad wanted, changing the course of history for decades to come. Yes rove and Cheney did lots but ultimately they all played their role and achieved (terrible) greatness
it's really much more aggressive than that at this point.. it actually is a game of "give the liberals all the worry" for them.. or, act like a screaming child, and treat liberals like mommy..
Even explaining it sounds like a garbage humble brag — let me assure you I’m no genius. What I meant was, when I first understood “ignorance is bliss”, I was like “well, I’m particularly cursed because I am very smart”
Hey, just cuz they basically own a state and send their kids who aren’t brainwashed zealots to camps where they force them to do manual labor and abuse them doesn’t mean they should pay taxes. Think about how much harder it will be for them to pay out any lawsuits for the rampant sexual abuse they throw members out for reporting. Think of the pastors and l church leaders. Don’t they deserve to live like kings and assault whoever they want to?
I can stick my hand through a curtain and do the secret handshake into heaven. I am the chosen. If you drink caffeine strait to hell sinners.
TL;DR: A patent and trademark agent and NPM bullied an Open Source Dev, so the Dev deleted his code from NPM as is his right. The internet broke. NPM restored the code against the dev’s wishes. Corpos win…as always.
They don’t teach about Configuration Management in web-dev bootcamp
Ha! Bullshit like configuration management, memory management, optimizing compilers, all obsolete technology! We don’t need that anymore with modern web browsers now that every single computer ever is connected to the Internet, and now that we have AI to write code for us!!! JavaScript is the one true language!
“Bullied”? I mean, the open source app the trademarker wanted to replace wasn’t popular either, and I don’t see how the heck “kik” could be related to something for creating templates. Neither do I see it for messaging, but that is a trademark.
In this case, we believe that most users who would come across a kik package, would reasonably expect it to be related to kik.com.
Not in my book. They asked him if he would rename his package, he replied sorry but I'm building a project with this name, and they replied that they were going to send lawyers to do takedowns if he would release his project. This would also rub me the wrong way. Also, the dev was already working on the package before the kik company ever came to NPM. Why would he have to give up on the name for his project?
For United States trademarks, not necessarily. You don’t have to enforce the trademark to keep it; you just have to renew it on time.
The problem with not enforcing the trademark is that it opens the term up to genericization (for example, referring to all types of tissues as Kleenex). Genericization will cause a company to lose the trademark.
I don’t think kik was worried about that. It’s more likely they were bullying the guy into giving up the package name.
I’m not sure you are right. There seem to be an awful lot of lawyers phrasing it less clearly.
Trademarks require constant vigilance. The moment you let your guard down, there’s a chance that someone else might swoop in and use your trademark without permission. This unauthorized usage could lead to confusion among customers and weaken the association between the trademark and the company it represents. Therefore, defending your trademark should be a top priority.
It’s been a few years since I dug through trademark law trying to find an answer to this question, but from my understanding, as long as the trademark isn’t abandoned, doesn’t become genericized, and is renewed, it doesn’t have to be strictly enforced through litigation.
You only really need to enforce your trademark when there’s a chance of it causing confusion about whether goods produced by some other party are actually produced by the trademark holder (which is the scenario your quote is talking about). Take “Apple,” for example. I can’t sell any software or electronics with the name “Apple” on it without infringing on Apple, Inc.'s trademark, but I can sell “Farmer Tim’s Golden Delicious Apples” without issue. If Apple tried to enforce their trademark on a box of apples, they wouldn’t be successful. If they tried to enforce their trademark on Tim Apple’s iJuicer Pro, they probably would succeed.
Anyway, I think a lot of the confusion about this comes from trademark law being oversimplified into the phrase “use it or lose it.” That’s strictly true when it comes to actually using the trademark, but it’s not actually a requirement to liberally enforce it.
That might be true regardless of copyright law :)
A sad truth. You don’t need to win when you can bury your opposition in legal costs (or threats of).
I’m sure it violates other professional conduct rules, but at the very least, intentionally misleading a client or omitting information would likely be considered a lack of competence.
A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.
Thanks for your reply. I’m inclined to believe you, as it seems more likely that this was a case of corporate bullshit and not a case of “alas, our hands are tied”.
The dev could claim something like "prior art", or whatever the alternative is for software. Suppose I trademark the name "is-odd" for a company, should NPM now hand me the "is-odd" package name? This would surely break the internet in the same way is an this case.
But see, that’s the thing. Trademark isn’t formally granted or applied for. It has to be for an established thing that has common name recognition like kleenex or band-aid. The purpose behind this is to give legal recourse for someone to defend their brand. In order to trademark ‘is-odd’, you would have to be able to show that people (society in your country really) use is-odd to refer to a class of thing you do/make/own. You could argue that Twitter as a trademark still belongs to the ass who runs the company (by extension) because everyone insists on calling it Twitter. The expression of Twitter now has no bearing on where the trademark lies, if it exists in the first place. That would be copyright.
Now, I agree that the system is dumb, but npm should also have infrastructure in place to enable renaming so that if a case comes about where a package is renamed, that doesn’t break the internet.
Like NPM said, I'd expect a package named kbin to be about kbin.social, not e.g. some random recycling app. The company wants to open source their stuff. That's great! And then, kik a bit selfishly doesn't want some package with only 1 star and 3 watches to confuse the 5 people who would want to look at the source code. NPM doesn't conflate versions between different packages formerly published under the same name, so virtually no harm done to existing users. People who want Kik's code would get to find Kik, and people would still be able to use the renamed project. I don't see a reason for the dev to hold on to their Kik name when it would do a slight bit of harm.
Though, maybe that's not how it turned out. NPM later took over Kik's package again as a security holding to this day, and whatever you think, it's not a good reaction to unpublish all your popular packages, causing massive code breakage around the world and Facebook going up in flames, prompting the world to reevaluate dependency chains and the world's dependency on JavaScript- that sounds kinda nice, actually, so maybe I'm glad this happened.
I get that, but suppose you start a package on NPM named "bronk". Sometime later someone starts a company with that name. Should you just be forced to give up your package name, just because people suddenly associate the name with the company?
On Valentine’s Day in 2009, Biden jogged 2 1/2 miles from the vice president’s residence to the White House. While the vice president was in a meeting, she snuck into his office with the help of his assistant and painted “big multicolored hearts all over his windows for Valentine’s Day.
This is an excellent example of how you can use statistics/percentages to push a false narrative.
Cause you hear “Dev increased game 33%” and you wonder what the fuck is going on, and in that same vein a 17% price hike doesnt sound nearly as outrageous. Despite the fact that 33% is a paltry 2 dollars, that came with a massive increase in content, and the measly 17% is a massive increase in price for a game that is fundamentally worse than what was made 10 years ago in scope and content.
and to be clear, I am not saying RecluseRamble is in any way pushing any kind of negative/false narrative. I’m just using his % without context (within the vein of his own post) to show how things can be manipulated.
I agree, I hate it when I say "removing unemployment payouts to millionaires can save our nation tens of millions of dollars!" to be met with "that's just .418% of our national debt"
No. Earthworms are native to the United States, says Melissa McCormick, ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, but the earthworms in some northern parts of the country (including Vermont) aren’t indigenous. Thousands of years ago, glaciers that covered North America and reached as far south as present-day Illinois, Indiana and Ohio wiped out native earthworms. Species from Europe and Asia, most likely introduced unintentionally in ship ballast or the roots of imported plants, have spread throughout North America.
The only world where the majority of North America doesn’t have native earthworms is the Mercator projection. Sure, there are both non-native and invasive earthworms; however, its almost inevitable that these organisms would have made it this far north at some point: they were almost assuredly there prior to the latest glaciation. Owing to the fact that its not covered in a mile of ice any more, the worms were coming.
Now I'm confused. Here's what Wikipedia says. The last ice age was 11,000 years ago, so presumably they should have spread back out northwards since then... or maybe they needed to evolve the ability to survive in the cold first, which they haven't had time to do? IDK.
I'll edit the title to be more accurate. I don't necessarily see a conflict between the fine details of what the article says / what Wikipedia says / what Smithsonian says, but my title is misleading and the careless way I read the article led me to totally misunderstand it.
11k years isn’t a ton of time. But yeah, I’m sure 🦆🪿 have been crapping out worm 🪱 🥚 s. Also consider that the premise of them existing is based on a sampling of some data.
Academically I consider myself a scientific materialist, which means I’m trying to believe as little as I possibly can(but not more). The way I try to think about these things is in terms of abstractions of belief; I believe the field data however much I do based on their protocol and method; I believe the derived statistics from those data quite a bit less depending whatever uncertainty metrics they offer and the specific procedure; I believe the conclusions even less depending on how well supported, and I believe theory, an abstraction and consolidation of conclusions and results the least.
I’m spelling this out because I don’t believe scientific philosophy or it’s extensions to be well taught or understood by both ley and trained individuals. There is a tension that exists between theoreticians and experimentalists, that frankly, the theoreticians are regularlly coming out on the wrong side of. I think this has its origins in the academic tradition of western civilization coming from religion. I work to invert the belief structure by focusing on only having to believe the most minimum that I need to believe.
This is where factoids become, well problematic. There is a tendency to see scientifically generated statements as statements of fact, when actually, for a scientific statement to be scientific, it can’t be taken to be 100% true. At it’s core, the statement needs to be falsifiable to be a scientific statement. Which means, it can’t be 100% true; there needs to be at least some epsilon of uncertainty for a statement to be falsifiable, which means while we might be highly confident in it, there is some potential it just may not be that way.
But the tradition of religion doesn’t work that way. Truth is absolute in the religious philosophies that underpin the western academic tradition. So culturally there is this tendency to want to ‘believe’ the most abstracted elements of scientific work (conclusions, theories, etc…), when in fact these elements are the things we should believe the least, because of the cultural definitions and understandings of truth that these traditions find their roots in.
So it’s not unusual to want to make broad statements of fact from limited information, but we should be considering the caveat that this thing we are saying is what we believe the least. We may still believe it, but we believe the statistics used the generate the conclusion moreso, and we believe the data generated to support the statistics even moreso. It’s just not particularly interesting to humans to say something along the lines of “We did not find evidence of earthworm behavior in this sediment, that sediment or that other sediment over there”, when in fact that is where we should be putting the majority of the weight of our belief (assuming you subscribe to scientific materialist as a way of getting at the truth of things).
Factoids don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, but just because something is pleasing to think, this has no bearing on its relationship to truth.
This is a fascinating analysis of culture and religion of origin and it’s influence on scientific views. I also admire your rigorous skepticism, but I have a question:
Why, for the love of Om, did you used emojis like you did?
just because something is pleasing to think, this has no bearing on its relationship to truth.
Like “yeah, I’m sure 🦆🪿 have been crapping out worm 🪱 🥚”?
Earthworms aren’t internal parasites and thus probably never evolved the ability for their eggs to survive 🦆🪿 digestion. They produce 2-5mm cocoons which have the eggs and which are deposited into soil, and which I don’t think would survive duck digestion.
It takes time for earth worms to occupy available ecosystems. It’s not like they’re natural migrators. In particular, they’re slow to cross rivers. Not very good swimmers either. I’m addition to agriculture and construction, anglers also seem to be spreading them.
Actually it’s mostly due to the construction materials and techniques used. American houses are generally less well insulated and built with the explicit expectation that there will be active air conditioning used to maintain the temperature.
Meanwhile in Europe this is not only comparatively very expensive to do, it is also largely unnecessary due to many buildings predating modern air conditioning, using good insulation and passive systems to maintain a comfortable temperature. There are also regulations on newly built houses that make it generally attractive to build energy efficient.
There isn’t one. The latitude isn’t the only reason either; the jet stream over the Atlantic moderates the European climate. Meanwhile in places like Minnesota and Buffalo you oscillate between -30°F with 48” of snow in 24 hours in January to 100°F with 90% relative humidity in August. If construction were poor and insulation was substandard, people would die.
Most of Europe doesn’t have a/c for the same reason a lot of Seattle and SF don’t — it’s never been necessary.
The North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (NAIMA) reported that approximately 90% of U.S. single-family homes are under-insulated and are wasting energy and money
Then there are some design choice difference that also matters. In the US average ceiling height is around 9 foot. In Europe it's 11. Open floor plans are more common in the US. It's a trend coming to Europe but given the average age of a house in Europe it's still relatively rare.
Yes, the USA has plenty of well built houses. No one is arguing against this. And the climate plays a bigger part why most of Europe doesn't have AC. But the statement is still true. European homes are generally built without taking an AC into consideration and are trying to fix the issues in a passive way because of it.
The USA aren't the worst offender either. Australia has it way worse. They have some of the worst insulation and are melting during summer and freezing during winter. Despite spending an ungodly amount on cooling and heating.
Hmm, my apartment building is mostly cinderblock and concrete, I have 12 foot ceilings, I’m on the first (above the entry) of five floors so hot air should rise away, and I have good double glazing with UV blocking film and screens. But mid-afternoon when that low-latitude Southern California sun hits, and the Santa Anas are blowing off the desert, even closing all the curtains and turning off appliances can’t keep it cool. So we set the AC for 77 and swelter until the sun goes behind the building across the street. And I make sure I get all the day’s cooking done in the morning so I’m not adding any heat. I’ve seen Europeans come and sunburn themselves because they think they know how long they can play in the sun but they haven’t met OUR sun. It’s just more direct.
I recently got all new insulation, central ac, ducts. Just getting new insulation helpped a lot but I dont how much is enough. The company just showed a chart and said this how mich is standard here. Yes it is an american home yes it is brick.
It’s very very common in the Northeast to not have AC in spite of the wooden construction and lack of insulation. No one in my family from upstate NY has AC. The climate is the vast majority of the reason there’s more AC in the US.
One thing I can promise you, even if it's not 2x4 construction, those brick and plaster walls will turn a house into an oven over the summer even with judicious control of open windows. They just store up the heat for a night time that feels like noon day sun. Folks used to straight up sleep on their porches.
Signed,
A resident of an un-air conditioned brick and plaster house in the mid Atlantic currently sweating his balls off
That’s been a problem with climate change in the UK where air conditioning doesn’t really exist but we are starting to experience warmer weather than the houses were built for.
Can confirm, so long as you have cool nights and insulated houses you don’t strictly need ACs, you can get by with opening all the windows at night and closing them (and closing the curtains) during the day so the cold is trapped inside.
I live in a new build and my biggest heating bill this winter was about above £60. I only have portable air con because I WFH and my giant 4K monitors heat up to +46 and just blast that heat into my face all day long. That’s awesome during the winter as I don’t have to heat my work room at all, but during the hottest days it becomes a problem. Other parts of the home don’t need air con at all. Was OK even during last year’s heatwave.
Do you even understand how to protect your home from the heat? When it’s hot outside, your insulation protects you from the hear outside. But there’s a weak link - your windows. You MUST cover them completely during the day. And also you MUST keep ALL windows closed during the day. That will keep your home cool. Then during the night when the temperature drops, you should open your windows for ventilation and cooling.
American houses are generally less well insulated and built with the explicit expectation that there will be active air conditioning used to maintain the temperature.
Well, that’s just silly and shortsighted. A well-insulated house will maintain its temperature more efficiently and require less active temperature control.
So that sort of mindset seems pretty on point for 'murica.
Are you fucking high?!? 38° is a hot summer day in Europe. Thats 100.4° F. When I lived there I hated life. Mosquitoes outside my window without a screen, so a breeze was out of the question. No A/C inside so breathing was also out of the question. I eventually found reprieve in the form of a 5” fan sold to me by an old man.
So is Canada, but it has 64% of homes with air conditioning.
Also, maybe it’s just me, but like didn’t England, France, Spain, Italy and southern Germany all hit like 100f (38c) or higher this summer (and other summers before that)?
It’s less of a story and more a telling sign that climate change is having a direct impact on humans that it’s becoming more and more necessary for people in even European, Canadian and even PNW climates to adapt and outfit houses and businesses with them.
The main reason is how people build houses. In Europe, people use different meterials (bricks, mortar, concrete, etc.) which insulate and put on top insulation. Walls are thicker too. The good insulation keep the heat outside.
The other is the law. Europe has regulations on AC. For example, if I want AC in my house, I must compansate the electricy consumption with renewable.
While building with different materials DOES change insulation, that doesn’t mean it always makes the buildings cooler.
On the contrary, building with bricks, as is standard for all year residential buildings throughout most of Europe is a way to trap and detain heat, NOT a way to keep heat out.
You see, the greatest temperature difficulty before anthropogenic global was the outside being too COLD, so that’s what we’ve been building for and because of that, AC hasn’t been as necessary.
Nowadays though, the heat retaining structures with no AC are becoming unbearably hot for much of the year. We desperately need environmentally responsible AC.
That’s nonsense. Insulation works both ways. It doesn’t differentiate if outside is cold or hot. A well insulated house will keep you warm during winter and cool during summer.
My house is very wel insulated. It doesn’t take much energy to keep it at a nice temperature in winter.
In summer though, it can get very hot inside. The reason is that I have some fairly large, south facing windows. And once it’s hot inside, it’s very hard to cool it down again.
I should really invest in some blinds, preferably outside, to keep the sun out during hot days.
But the point is that insulation and keep heat in/out is not perfectly symmetrical.
Well, your problem is the sun going through the windows. They completely defeat your house insulation. Yes, you need blinds, they help a lot. Preferably, outside mounted. Like in Southern Europe. If you cannot mount them outside, look for pleated blinds. They not only your room protect from the sun, but also work as an additional insulation layer. You can also close them during winter nights to save a bit of energy.
Mate, you might as well complain your house is too hot because you run the heating all summer. Your insulation is working fine, you’re just nerfing it by not keeping the sun out.
It has to be cold inside to begin with. Much of the US has night time lowes over 25 in the summer, with daily averages of 30. So a uncooled home will never be near that. Allg homes should be well insuladed, but just like it would be mad do hgae no heat in much of Europe, its similarity not realistic to have no cooling in much of the us.
Not arguing about which is better but most American brick homes you see are a brick veneer, still renting on plywood, studs, and Sheetrock for the actual wall.
I think most people here are talking about the structure being provided by the brick/blocks. Typically they’re much thicker and heavier and provide structure and some insulation.
Ottawa is on the same latitude as Venice so it’s not like canada is very northly (though i know canada has a much more varied temperature range). That aside i think there are many reasons, like the southern countries are not as wealthy as US and theres a culture of using other methods to survive the heat such as building colors, not paving every cm^2 of land etc. And if we look at more northen Eu countries like where I live (sweden) the highest ever measured temp is 38c (100.4f). So anyone here who needs an AC for the few days when the temp is above 25c is a card carrying bitch.
Yes, I think you underestimate Siberian summers. Here are three places with (fairly) similar latitude and identical summer temperatures, but nearly 20°C difference in winter: weatherspark.com/…/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weat…
Having lived in Germany for a year, no. It gets hot in the summer. It’s hard to concentrate while at work when there isn’t even a fan. I don’t get it. It would make economic sense for businesses like the software house I worked for, on productivity loss alone.
I’m Brazilian. I don’t know what the average temperature is in Brazil in freedom units, but I know I can function there during summer because of AC. In Germany in 2007 I was basically just starting at a computer screen while sweating without much to show for it.
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