MiscreantMouse

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

So you're just making stuff up to get angry about. Big studies show de-transition rates are drastically below rates of regret for most common surgeries, including medically-necessary knee surgery, and cosmetic breast augmentation (which teenage cis girls get, and regret, all the time).

Many de-transtioners are just bullied out of medical care by people like yourself, only to re-transition later. The most common reasons cited for detransition were pressure from a parent (36%), transitioning was too hard (33%), too much harassment or discrimination (31%), and trouble getting a job (29%).

Supporting trans kids is mostly just about clothes/name/pronouns, and the only thing they're offered is puberty blockers, which were used safely in cisgender children with precocious puberty for decades before people like you started distorting the facts.

You're just another bigot spreading medical misinformation in a bad-faith attempt to block medical care for a stigmatized minority group, and you should feel bad about it. Shame.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

Ah yes, you have one 'health board' that was conspicuously taken over by TERF ideologues, which then started spouting junk science and ignoring the actual medical professionals. That totally trumps all the reputable medical orgs.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

The real question is where tf were the journalists while Santos was running his campaign on these false claims?

Too busy playing horse race? Frantically trying to find something newsworthy about Hunter Biden's laptop? Credulously glorifying some billionaire's childish misconceptions?

Guess we'll never know.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

Ah yes, clearly we should simply accept that corruption is endemic, unavoidable really, and expect our press to ignore it.

Tale as old as time, I'm sure it'll work out fine.

They have more important things to focus on anyway! Like Hunter Biden's laptop.

And of course, Journalism's collapsing payment model is entirely the public's fault. Just give them more money you lazy bums!

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

Oh I'm sorry, after re-reading it looks like you actually said we should fight for better journalism by skipping breakfast, or selling our plasma, and giving the money we save to the conglomerates providing our local news. Totally makes sense.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

Because you're obviously struggling, what I'm saying that objective & effective journalism is vital to informed decision-making in a democracy, and we're not getting it because journalism in the US is run as a business¸ which imo will always end with media focusing exclusively on whatever makes them the most money, irrespective of the truth. If we want real journalism we need to view it, and fund it, as a public service. The problem is systemic, and our news media will continue to fail us until the system is rectified.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Hey man, call me an asshole if it makes you feel better, I'm just pointing out the problems as I see them, and the giant gaping holes in your suggestions. Widespread political corruption isn't something we can safely ignore. The public can't crowdfund journalism in a sustainable way, unless they get a substantial increase in disposable wealth.

That's the world as it currently exists.

One Koch donation is worth more than the locals can ever give to local journalism, and most local outlets are just Sinclair Broadcast Group in a rubber mask anyway. But sure, be angry that you can't fix it by parroting a facile solution, that really helps us get there.

In response to your edit:
You're so close to getting it omg. Keep trying. It's almost like this is a problem that's been considered before, and had a solution. How could we ensure a public service is publicly funded? Should our poorest even be selling their plasma to pay taxes? That almost sounds like a whole other problem... If only we had a way to regulate these things. But of course, we can only consider solutions within a capitalist model, cuz 'merica, so obviously there's no solution.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

👍 Do you feel better?

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

Lol, I'm not hoarding anything, just trying to get you to actually think critically about the problems inherent in your approach. And yep, I'm being smug, because you refuse to think seriously about your responses, while getting all huffy because someone dared to point out how unworkable the easy answers are. But calling me names totally strengthens your position though, good job there.

You keep mentioning 'total revolution' as the obvious solution, and I would like you to think about why that is. I think we need big structural changes if we want to claw back anything approximating a democracy. You keep saying I won't give you a solution, and it's baffling to me that you can't get there on your own, but if you need spoon-feeding, imo one of the most fundamental things we need do is go back to taxing the wealthy fairly, in order to pay for social services. gasp

It's just boggling to me that you apparently can't even begin to see taxes as something that would help the poor, rather than hurt them, a perspective I'd suspect you've picked up from our deeply biased news media. Turns out, instead of making the poor sell their plasma, we should actually be making billionaires sell their yachts and vacation homes.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

You know what? I do.

MiscreantMouse , 6 months ago

Wow, so It's almost as if expecting unregulated capitalism to solve this problem is not working? How could that be?

Oh well, I guess we just need to ignore the problem until it gets better.

MiscreantMouse , 7 months ago

Shopping for the right judge.

MiscreantMouse , 8 months ago

If you're supporting the side indiscriminately starving millions, you need to take a very long look in the mirror. This fight is villains vs villains, and civilians are taking the brunt of the brutality from both sides.

MiscreantMouse , 8 months ago

Looking at the maps, who exactly is being wiped out?

MiscreantMouse , 8 months ago

And helping Israel would ultimately lead to either a bloody stalemate or the annihilation of Palestine.

These religious fanatics are reaping what they've sown, it's no one else's responsibility to save them from the consequences of their behaviour.

MiscreantMouse , 9 months ago

Unfortunately, in "BPA Free" plastic, BPA has usually been replaced with very similar chemicals, which probably cause the same problems.

MiscreantMouse , 10 months ago

He's always the one giving a 'bipartisan' veneer to these awful bills. Here's one trying to end encryption, which he co-sponsored with Lindsey Graham

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago

Funny how the right wing never cares about free speech & censorship when their side is abusing it.

Anyway loser, this was posted by a voter.

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago

You are definitely not a lawyer, and the people backing these bills intentionally use language that creates a specious justification for the erosion of privacy and freedom online.

This bill will require everyone to start using their government ID to post just about anything online, while allowing state AGs to censor basically anything they want in bad faith.

The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing hate group, has already made clear that they will use this to censor any/all LGBTQIA+ material.

Here is a lawyer providing a more detailed thread explaining the issues with this bill.

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Again, I think you are being very naive about the language in this bill, and attempting to apply a common use interpretation, rather than a legal interpretation. It doesn't matter what the bill says to you, it matters what the bill means for the legal system.

Why do you think that so many legal & tech professionals are up in arms about this bill? Here is more information about the GOP plans to use this bill to censor LGBTQIA+ content.

I think the conversation should be preventing abuse of laws in general.

How do you expect this to happen in the real world? The GOP is very open about their plans to abuse this law, how do you expect to stop them?

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago

Lol, ok, I'm sorry it's so difficult. Anyway, it's included in the link I provided above, but the ACLU, EFF, GLAAD and over 90 organizations have sent an open letter to congress outlining the dangers in this bill, so those 'claims' shouldn't be too hard to verify.

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Do you think that's safe to say? Here's what some of the experts say about the rewrite. Spoiler alert: the problems were not addressed.

It's really hard to take you seriously when you're very optimistic about the bill's authors, but very doubtful about all the first amendment lawyers explaining the legal consequences of the bill.

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago

Neat how you blithely ignore that aside from Blumenthal, a 75 year-old who has been trying to eliminate the open internet for ages, the other author is Marsha Blackburn, a racist tea party republican who kept asking for Obama's birth certificate and doesn't believe in climate change... yep no issues there.

JFC, the tech companies, especially Google and Meta, would love to have a government ID for all their users, they don't make their money on content, they make their money selling advertising, and tracking their users across the internet is a big part of that.

If you're this lost in the woods, and refuse to believe the overwhelming consensus of legal experts regarding the consequences of this legislation, or even the GOP's open admission of their intent to misuse the bill, then yes, I guess there's no getting through to you. Good luck with those critical thinking skills.

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago

Would it be impossible to create separation between sites used by older teens and adults?

Obviously it's not impossible, it just requires sites to obtain a verifiable proof of age, i.e., a government ID.

A lot of pathological optimism in this thread, and it might not impact you (at first), but the document you're quoting explains why a lot of people are concerned:

KOSA would require online services to “prevent” a set of harms to minors, which is effectively an instruction to employ broad content filtering to limit minors’ access to certain online content. Content filtering is notoriously imprecise; filtering used by schools and libraries in response to the Children’s Internet Protection Act has curtailed access to critical information such as sex education or resources for LGBTQ+ youth. Online services would face substantial pressure to over-moderate, including from state Attorneys General seeking to make political points about what kind of information is appropriate for young people. At a time when books with LGBTQ+ themes are being banned from school libraries and people providing healthcare to trans children are being falsely accused of “grooming,” KOSA would cut off another vital avenue of access to information for vulnerable youth.

MiscreantMouse OP , 11 months ago

Oops, you're absolutely right about the attribution, the quote I posted above is from an earlier letter, I had too many open at once.

Unfortunately, the provision you mention is essentially a bad-faith attempt to skirt the first amendment objections, while leveraging the imposed 'duty of care' to allow State AGs to censor with impunity. From p.6 of the more recent letter:

KOSA will enable politically motivated actors to purge the Internet of speech that they dislike under the guise of “protecting minors.” Section 11(b) permits state attorneys general to bring enforcement actions whenever they believe that a resident of their state has been adversely affected by an alleged violation of KOSA. The inevitable abuse is entirely predictable. Consider two possibilities. First, in the aftermath of the May 14, 2022 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a report blaming social media platforms for hosting the hateful speech that radicalized the shooter and calling for increased civil liability.27 Under KOSA’s duty of care, James could file suit 28 alleging failure to mitigate or prevent “physical violence” that might affect a minor user to pressure platforms into removing any speech deemed “hateful.”

Second, some have already admitted that KOSA will be 29 used to censor LGBTQ content, especially that which relates to gender-affirming care. Armed with cherry-picked and selectively interpreted studies associating trans content with “anxiety, depression . . . and suicidal behavior,” 30 an ambitious attorney general will claim that “evidence-informed medical information” requires that platforms prohibit minors from viewing such content under KOSA’s duty of care. A state attorney general need not win a lawsuit—or even file one at all—to effectuate censorship. They need only initiate a burdensome investigation to pressure platforms to take down or restrict access to disfavored content.(31)

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

I'm not the person you replied to, but I use Matrix for this, and it works very well for my purposes.

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

I've actually seen a right-wing Christian pundit arguing, "why worry about climate change, when heaven is real?"

They're super unconcerned about killing us all.

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

They've also been on Mastodon since Dec '22

https://mastodon.social/@elonjet

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

Yeah, it mostly seems like a publicity piece for Threads. I think Threads is available in the UK though, but not the EU.

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

And as we know, you should always trust a scorpion when they tell you they won't sting...

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

Gmail blocks a ton of smaller email services for generating spam / scams / malicious activity, just because a protocol is open doesn't mean it has to tolerate problematic content.

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

im honestly surprised you're using kbin or any federated service with that take lol, how could you simultaneously be for federation but also against it?

This is a silly perspective to me, but apparently it is a common misconception about federation.

IMO, just because you can federate doesn't mean you should... In fact, the ability to defederate is one of the most appealing aspects of a federated system, as a means of mitigating problematic content.

The front door to your house opens, but you don't have to open it for everyone.

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

Also, remember there are a bunch of nice 3rd party options for Android, like: Tusky (personal favorite), Fedilab, Megalodon, & Tooot

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

It's not! The official app is relatively new, and Tusky has more features, or did the last time I compared.

MiscreantMouse , 11 months ago

I switched last year and haven't looked back! For me at least, Mastodon has been a much better experience than Twitter ever was.