Jesweez
4mo ago
A working class revolt against the educated class, yes
I can see why maybe you felt that previous years were like the cultural revolution, you probably felt censored and I can get that.
I never really had opinions I felt I had to censor that much under wokeness, but I am fresh off of scrubbing all mentions of “climate” from my research proposal and changing every instance of “diversity”, even though I was talking about the diversity of water availability among forests
Jesweez
4mo ago
To be honest I’ve never seen examples of unprofessionalism or activism in any of my sojourns in the academic world, particularly not among STEM.
I’m sure you can find examples of scientists behaving badly, and maybe a bad apple does spoil the lot, but I’ve truly only ever seen cases where instances of fudging data gets you excommunicated from your career, and several examples of wishy washy politicized (or just romanticized) science leading to pushback and loss of reputation.
It could be that I’m blind to it. But that’s my experience.
There’s several things going on here IMO. One, it’s hard to see all of an institution when you’re inside it, you only interact with and see your local closest nodes.
But also, it’s really hard for people outside to have an accurate grasp of it as well. A lot of the information that flows to the public sphere itself flows through biased mediums. You could easily paint a whole system as Chinese robbers based on an example or two.
So, I acknowledge there could be a lot of highly politicized scientists in some epidemic of science that I’m not really perceiving. But I’m also suspicious of these takes that STEM science is so deeply political at present.
There’s a big mismatch between my experience and what you’re implying, there’s probably a reality inbetween our two positions but I’m almost certain that the extreme view that many here take towards science is not it.
“Enormous propaganda machine”… or alternatively, a few people you disagree with in a comment section.
Partisan commenters always refuse to admit there could have been some good things done by people they disagree with. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
Jesweez
4mo ago
Sometimes my prefrontal cortex doesn’t make the best decisions, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to sabotage it out of revenge.
Essentially you’re arguing that this is for revenge and implicitly acknowledging that it will be bad for the United States even so.
But I don't think accusing people of eating wildlife and/or pets is dehumanizing them.
People will kill for their pets.
Somebody harming our pets is a sick and severe crime to most of our moral systems.
To accuse an ethnic group of eating our pets is explicitly setting them up to be the targets of violence.
Those people are going to be in harms way, there’s no two ways about it.
Jesweez
6mo ago
Awesome, so it’ll help us address the fertility crisis too
America is so back
Jesweez
5mo ago
Why do all these outbreaks of mass arson seem to occur exactly when there is historically extreme fire weather conditions?
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10279345
Are they that competent to plan exactly when the conditions on the fire triangle are perfect and then go out to set fires together?
Same thing with the Canadian fires in 2023. Apparently there was this historically unique epidemic of arsonists setting fires all through the boreal forest even deep into the north country exactly when the climate conditions were extraordinarily prone to wildfire.
Jesweez
4mo ago
Certainly the country is welcome to decide the amount of funding that should go toward science.
I do believe that the uncertainty and removal of opportunities will potentially have generational effects on the ability of the US to do science, which I think is a shame.
We’re currently a scientific powerhouse of a nation. I do see these moves as deciding to cede that status.
I obviously disagree with the sentiment being shared in this thread as I believe that scientific powerhouses are rare in history would prefer not to see this one undone or ceded.
Sorry it makes you feel that way.
I imagine there must have been people who felt the same in Rome at the height of its power. There were people from all over the empire living in the city. To me that’s just what comes from being the dominant country in the world and particularly one which formed by shouting “come migrate here, it’s great!” to the rest of the world.
Ethnic strife might happen but it’s not really new either. My grandpa grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Chicago, and as kids they would fight with the other kids from the Irish neighborhood and the Polish neighborhood. He hated Polacks as he would call them. Funny enough, he then married a half Polack girl and then his daughter married a full Polish dude and they now have the most Polish surname in existence. Now he just says the Polack thing as a joke, but he gets along really well with my Polish as fuck uncle.
This was all quite recent. But in time these identities just blended into the background of America and stopped mattering. Now you just see “Chinese” and “Mexican” and “Italian” and “Korean” people, and meanwhile they’re just undeniably culturally American because they’ve been here for generations. They’ll say stuff like “I’m Italian!” or “I’m Mexican!” while actual Europeans or Mexicans roll their eyes and laugh to themselves saying, bro, no you’re not. They’re right, they just became Americans. Same BS as the rest of us.
I can see the point in that changing the composition of a democracy will change change the composition of the decision making apparatus.
But there is one more difference I can say there is between the US and Europe. We are literally just definitionally immigrants. The country has always been a place that people immigrate to because it offers opportunities and advantages. I’d have to be convinced that there is some compelling reason that right now is the unique moment in time where it’s correct to stand up and yell stop.
And I don’t really see much unique about right now. People on this forum I suspect would be quick to jump out and say, but now they’re not Europeans that’s the problem! But that’s something that’s unique to now, we’ve had non-European immigration going on for many decades and they’ve integrated just fine. We have chinatowns and neighborhoods where you can get authentic tacos and not much that I see that’s genuinely bad to show for it.
Was there some severe problem that immigration caused in the past in the US? I don’t really think so and so I’m not one of the jump around and yell stop people.
Jesweez
4mo ago
You don't think I believe that there are people in a comment section who refuse to admit that the other side might have done something they'd otherwise agree with?
Jesweez
6mo ago
That’s literally the entire concept of America, we’re a country of people who had the resolve to cross oceans to seek a better life. Every single one of us apart from the Native Americans and those descended from slaves meets that description.
Now we’re suddenly going to rewrite it?
Jesweez
2yr ago
Yeah, haha you’ll have to excuse me.
I took a break from this place for a bit and it was comedic for me to gawk at the take that young women are liberal because they want big strong immigrants to come mate with them.
It might not be wrong btw. I’m pro immigration and I tend to find foreign women really hot. Who knows if deep down that’s my real motivation?
Carry on, as you were!
Jesweez
4mo ago
The desire for justice is often sadistic.
It’s a pretty common societal failure mode.
Jesweez
5mo ago
Were people riled up because of the sanctity of democracy?
I’m not sure that was the core motivation.
I think the modern new American right is one of the movements which is developing an anti-democratic undercurrent.
It’s not mainstream, but you start to see it pop up more and more. Your comment itself is bordering on being a testament to that.
Jesweez
6mo ago
Idk.
My ancestors are from northern Europe.
You know what that means?
I come from the people who more than any other group bred with a different freaking species than my own.
If admixture between races offends God than my lineage has already been damned since the last glacial maximum.
Jesweez
4mo ago
You have me mixed up with someone.
I’m a very infrequent commenter and I’m from the US.
Jesweez
4mo ago
I mean, it’s the truth. Basic science is a fundamental engine of progress. Just look at the past century of innovation.
Funding basic science is not something companies typically do. It’s too indirect. They’re not going to foot the bill to study what chemicals are in a desert dwelling lizard’s mouth.
I’d argue the same whether I was a scientist or not.
I do fear for my area of study to be honest.
To doxx myself, I study ecosystems with satellites. I develop models that link what we see in earth observation pixels with how much water is in vegetation.
The problem is that this is something which is verifiably being changed due to climate change, and with that I’m now in political waters.
I think earth science is definitely on the chopping block. Doesn’t seem to be in republicans vision of what we should invest in as a country.
Jesweez
5mo ago
Well there’s not a great definition of fascism, but I do think it’s a valid category that we shouldn’t do away with, nonetheless.
Jesweez
5mo ago
Liberal democracies tend not to do things like for example:
Crush a protest against the leader with authoritarian force, dismantle the system of democratic choice.
If you read my statement, I said that Trump didn’t do either of these things.
But he often does show tendencies toward these things, causing people to pattern match him to them.
Of course, if you are someone who is concerned about fascism, it’s important to pattern match potential fascists before they become actual fascists, so for those people it can be considered a worthwhile exercise.
Fascism is a word that has an actual meaning.
It has a meaning which does at times resonate quite a bit with Trump though, I’d argue that although he doesn’t fully meet the definition there is a reason it keeps getting applied to him specifically. For example,
Fascists often:
Dismantle the systems of democracy. Trump didn’t do this, I don’t think you can call him a full fascist at this point, but he has tendencies on this point. For many people, including his former vice president, he’s the first US president to try to break the system of transfer of power. Whatever you believe about that situation, he said from the beginning that he’ll consider the electoral process rigged if he loses. And once he did, he loudly and consistently employed a whole host of means to try break the system, trying to get governors to “find votes”, to put up alternative electors, to halt the system of certification, etc. He got his followers so riled up about this that they formed a mob and broke into the US capitol building. These are all definitely tendencies toward the dismantle democracy aspect of fascism, and if you were in a country where someone did try these things, you might pre-emptively call that person a fascist.
Promote ethnonationalism and typically delineate a group of people as an enemy. Trump often takes steps in this directions and then pulls back. Actual ethnonationalists often have a love hate relationship with the guy because he’ll use promising rhetoric and then say something else which is pro x or y ethnicity and which pisses those guys off. But in the end he was elected on the central promise to conduct the greatest mass deportations in American history, and those vibes certainly match what would be expected for historical fascists to say as well.
Use authoritarian state force on internal minority groups. I don’t think he’s done this, kudos. Other people often think he has, “children in cages”, etc. But fascism tends to be crueler than this and less within previously established norms. There are obviously fears around this happening during the mass deportations, but that remains to be seen.
Crush dissent violently. This is often part of the dismantle democracy thing. I don’t think Trump has done this and this would be the biggest American norm to violate in order for a fascist to emerge. I do believe that Trump the man himself has these tendencies that could have emerged in a different context (consider his rhetoric in quotes such as his praise of China’s strength during the Tiananmen massacre, and lamenting that were not strong like that). There are many similar quotes that could be mined to paint a case that he sometimes has somewhat of a fixation on this type of “strength”.
Idealize the military and often use military force in expansionist ways. Trump has sometimes idealized the military in ways that previous American norms have not, e.g. calling for the US to begin doing military parades in the style of China or N Korea. But up until this point he has not shown much tendency to launch any sort of military adventure, much to his credit. (And of course to your point about previous presidents, much to their demerit). Recently he’s been making people edgy on this point, yesterday saying that he would use economic and perhaps military force to annex various territories around the world. Knowing Trump, this is likely his typical “start with the most extreme statement” bluster. But I think it can be pretty clear to understand why for people who think he does have certain fascist tendencies to become concerned when he suddenly starts talking about expansion or annexing territories. We’ll see if he actually is serious about using economic force to try and annex other territories. If so he fits the point about territorial expansionism. If he broke with norms so extremely to threaten Panama with the military in order to take territory from them that would obviously be extremely fascist coded behavior. The whole thing, in the end, shows hints of him breaking with norms that liberal democracies have had in the postwar era. Like in the Helsinki accords, to which the US is signatory; they respect each others sovereignty, they respect territorial boundaries, they do not threaten one another for territory, etc. Breaking these norms is definitely fascist coded, and we’ll see if he continues down that path or if it’s just another passing Trumpism to sit back and enjoy.
I think you should learn Spanish specifically because shooting the shit with Mexicans — and I’m putting Mexicans in a deserved pedestal above all other Spanish speakers here — is the funniest shit and will probably lead to a great improvement in your daily life.
I’m sorry but es la neta wey
Lol, the motte is weird af
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