Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
User ID: 137
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1mo ago
Yes, of course there are migrants coming. No-one has denied that. That's different from the dumb catchphrase "infinity migrants", let alone the implication that EU is specifically regulating AI to facilitate immigration.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
8mo ago
So the idea is insane, and the Democrats would also be bad for... opposing this insane idea? Trying to make it not happen?
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
11mo ago
The thing that I'm wondering about is why put Neely into a chokehold? There were multiple people there trying to restrain Neely, couldn't they just pin him to the ground until the cops come pick him up?
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
I'm a father of two kids. There are multiple reasons why we won't/can't have any more, starting from the fact that my wife is 40 (our kids are 3 years and 5 months, it was not in any way given we would get even two).
I would not blame women myself, either. As I wrote here (originally a comment here, expanded to a blogpost with some other stuff included), the society places a huge amount of extra burdens on families that fall chiefly on the women and those almost certainly play a part of why so many people choose other things in lieu of kids.
Also, I've seen in my friend circles that there's a lot of single mothers with one kid who have evidently split up with their husbands or boyfriends after the kid has been born (maybe the guy has just left them, maybe for other reasons - I also know a lot of amiable separated couples who have no troubles doing co-parenting) and who basically then have to resign to a fairly low chance of ever having any more kids - due to time issues related to dating, sure, but also because they are now treated basically as a broken item, a second-rate price.
There are also a lot of "manosphere"/RW accounts that contribute to this idea - yes, of course, you deserve a perfect virginal tradwife, yes, "of course no guy wants to take care of another man's whelp!" and simultaneously affecting a concern on low fertility rates, not realizing that these sort of discourses might be just another part of the problem. Sure, it's rationalized as hard facts to make sure that women will stick with the fathers of their children and/or won't have premarital sex or whatever, but does it really work that way? It's not like women are the intended audience of manosphere accounts, after all.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
And yet, throughout those years, the black homicide offending rate (used here as a proxy for extreme criminality - rape rates are notoriously hard to define since they depend not only on how often the crime is committed but also on how often it is reported, since it is so dependent on actually being reported) has gone down, indeed gone down considerably.
Clearly something must have happened, whether that is a result of left-wing policies, right-wing policies (but if it's the result of successful right-wing policies, it would be evidence that leftist hegemony in society is not quite as firm as claimed), or things like potential offenders just staying inside to smoke weed and play violent computer games (but even then the legality of weed and comparative lack of regulation for violent games have been policy issues in themselves). The issue is being partially rectified, and that's what counts, no? It still is rather more important whether people are actually getting murdered or not than what the actual ethnic ratios of the murderers are.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
Anyone who wasn't plugged into news media would probably struggle to articulate any way in which Brexit has actually materially affected their life. Marginally more waiting times at airports to go on holiday?
If it doesn't affect your life in any other way expect to make you wait more time at airports, it has affected your life in a negative way, no? Which then just leads back to the issue of your country making this change for absolutely no reason that no-one has been able to explain beyond "gave Boris a chance to play PM for a bit", with large promises of extra cash for NHS and various other benefits that didn't come. Which is my point; why should millennial Remainers vote for Tories if what they get for voting Tories is... that?
Freedom of movement is almost never used in practice, indeed 55% of brits never move very far away from where they're born;
But I was not talking about 55 % of Brits. I was talking about Millennial Remainers.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
I'm not arguing against the thesis that they're crazy, I'm arguing against the idea that having unconventional ideas and lifestyles (especially if they're some years past) means they're not a right-winger.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
Well, as the Reuters article says:
In recent posts on several websites, an internet user named "daviddepape" expressed support for former President Donald Trump and embraced the cult-like conspiracy theory QAnon. The posts include references to "satanic paedophilia," anti-Semitic tropes and criticism of women, transgender people and censorship by tech companies.
Older messages promote quartz crystals and hemp bracelets. Reuters could not confirm that the posts were created by the man arrested on Friday.
The San Francisco Chronicle posted a photo of a man the newspaper identified as Depape dancing at the 2013 wedding of two nudist activists in San Francisco, though he was fully clothed. Depape, then a hemp jewelry maker who lived with the couple in a crowded home in Berkeley, was the best man at the wedding, the newspaper reported.
Unless this is a case of mistaken identity, it would be the Trump support, QAnon etc. that would be the reason for the label "far-right terrorism".
Really, do you think that it's impossible that this guy would go from being a Green Party voter to QAnon conspiracy theorism? I consider it very plausible, as such movement has been seen otherwise in similar circles during the Trump/Covid years.
One thing I've noted - generally, not just related to this case, and of course reporting might still change, as it is often wont to do - is that there are many right-wingers who are perfectly able to understand that left-wingers may often turn rightwards, even abruptly so, who find such developments and see-the-light movements expected, who have even done it themselves... but, if such a person happens to do something crazy, will immediately start going "Oh, see these old Facebook posts from years ago, look at his hippie hobbies, look at what a weirdo he is... clear case of left-wing terrorism, once again the media is blaming the right for no reason at all" and so on.
Just saw a Substack post saying much the same.
In the coming months and years, we will likely see the one turn into the other: Red becoming Browns, Browns turning Red, Christian becoming atheists, atheists becoming Christian, “new systems” declaring the essential compatibility of Orthodoxy and communism, of international socialism and national chauvinism, politics shrugged off and then adopted as any other affectation, like health fads or sudden tastes for the exotic Orient, but having the added benefit of granting the appearance of serious conviction and purpose. Here we get an insight into the unifying principle of all these supposedly disparate tendencies: a type of base, moronic cynicism. More than anything else, it is this moronic cynicism that takes itself to be devilish cleverness that is the governing ideology of the Russian state and society, and it attracts all its global admirers.
The cynical pose, which flatters itself on being always undeceived, is in practice highly gullible and distinguishable from naivety only in the sour churlishness of its affect. These attitudes should be expected in the nether regions of the press and intelligentsia, where people make their livings writing semi-pornographic conspiracy literature and closely identify with the mob. But these stances have infected the broader intellectual climate as well. The whole pamphlet literature of the demi-monde provides a new language that sounds provocative and fresh compared to the stale banalities of bien-pensant humanitarian liberalism. It is tempting material for those who treat both life and politics as an irresponsible flight from one pose to another.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
19d ago
I'm not sure why that should be compelling at all. "Science" isn't just one coherent entity where one scientist being wrong makes all of the rest in the vaguely same sector fundamentally wrong. One scientist, who might as well not even be alive any more, making a prediction in 1967 has no bearing on scientists making predictions right now. Much of the list isn't even concerned with scientists - neither Al Gore or Prince Charles are such - or is related to issues other than climate change, such as peak oil, which has plenty of advocates as a theory who don't consider climate change to be all that dangerous (Greer, say).
"Wow! Look at all these failed AI predictions!" is a lackluster argument in debates about when the AGI is coming, if it is at all, and this is similarly a lackluster argument in climate debates.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1mo ago
When I was little, I was disciplined a couple of times by hair-pulling, and it made me too fearful of parents and their reaction to, say, meet with friends outside of normal meeting times, which in turn contributed to my social life only really getting going once I moved away from home to university (19 in theory, 20 in practice since I returned to home city for conscription in the nearby brigade).
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
If so, we'd be seeing more crimes in the advanced welfare states than in other states, which we aren't seeing.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
6mo ago
I'm just reminded of how the Finnish Civil War is treated in Finland. The Finnish Civil War was an acrimonious conflict with consequences that reverbate to this day; I've met people still in the present day who basically define their political alignment through what side their great-granddad fought in.
Still, the society's grand narrative since WW2 has been reconciliation, with Winter War holding a particular mythological position as the war were the "sons of the Reds and the Whites fought side by side", and the welfare state has also been seen as the fulfillment of Red goals of social equality for the working class. The reconciliation also meant that, for instance, while there had only been markers and statues commemorating the White victory everywhere, it was also now OK to commemorate Red soldiers with graves and markers; during May Days left-wing orgs still ritualistically hold events at those graves.
However, I don't think anyone has ever proposed that reconciliation meant commemorating Red generals! Granted, they were, to put it mildly, not particularly militarily impressive figures, but I don't think there are any memorials for them anywhere. If someone even proposd to put one up, well - I'd guess they'd be seen as the deepest, dankest Stalinist in existence, the sort of a guy who goes through his daily life wearing a Soviet uniform and an ushanka.
OTOH, there are memorials to CGE Mannerheim, who led the white forces, in all of the major cities. During some statues fracas in the US a left-wing youth organization propsoed moving them to museum, this proposal was widely condemned by basically all of the other major political forces, and was then immediately shelved. Then again, Mannerheim also led the Finnish forces in WW2.
One thing I've never quite caught on is how may memorials to Northern generals there even are in the US, since all the culture war about Confederate statues gives the impression that the entire South (and some other states besides) is downright peppered with them, that there are memorials to Northern generals only comes up when someone poses a "They'll come after Grant next!" hypothetical, and I haven't seen basically any mentions of notable Black Civil War era figures getting memorialized, apart from maybe Harriet Tubman?
In the end, putting up a statue to some guy is basically equivalent to putting up a sign saying "This guy is a great guy! Everyone should emulate him and be like him!" and if the society has decided that he's actually not a great guy, it would seem as natural to put the statue away as it would be to put such a sign away, though it would indeed be more prudent to put it in a museum than destroy it entirely.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
7mo ago
I meant the military fatigues, specifically.
Insofar as I’ve observed on social media, the online American factions really playing attention to Ashton-Cirillo are NAFO shibas, who would support anyone talking about killing Russians, and American conservatives who are casting out to find any evidence of Ukraine being ‘work’ for domestic culture war reasons and also probably because it makes them feel better about implicitly supporting the invading side.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
7mo ago
A rather simple explanation for choosing Ashton-Cirillo as a spokesperson would be being one of the few native English-speaking volunteer fighters with media experience compounded with a distinct lack of military experience.
Sure, the military fatigues are a media strategy, but do you really think that the main audience for that one is "only left wing of the Democratic Party"?
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
11mo ago
Trump wasn't running against some generic "Left", Trump was running against Biden, and Biden's practical policies towards China have been identical to Trump, if possible even slightly more hostile.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
In my experience the easiest way to deal with the various dietary restrictions is to just offer vegan food. It's not foodproof but it's usually suitable for most.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
Well, why not blame Trump (even if you also blamed other figures, including great many Democrats)? After all, Trump has jocked his big beautiful vaccine every chance he's had. If there's a trial for Fauci, surely Trump face the same trial as well - unless the whole thing was just about going after the left/Democrats?
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
Remember when countries with no black people were having BLM protests?
As far as I remember, there were maybe one or two such protests in Finland, and they were typical fairly small solidarity protests that are very typical in European left scene regarding whatever issue is globally at stake in the media. Ie. one day you're organizing a BLM protests, another day
it's about Polish abortion laws, then on yet another day it's about Kurds in Syria or whatever.
On the scale of things the European BLM protests were very much a minor affair (outside of maybe UK?), yet they seem to be one of those things that continue to loom large on the subconsciousness of this forum, even though even among things that might serve as indicators of the spread of progressive American values globally or the general Americanization of European mind or so on, there are many better examples.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
I dunno, what amount of children's books would you surmise are about gay couples? We have a bunch of old and modern ones at our house, and leafing through them, I've spotted some cases where some background couple might be gay, but obviously since they're background they're not being featured in a major role.
I have perhaps more experience in watching kids' TV, and out of all the children's shows I've seen, I've seen one instance where there's a bit player gay couple (for the record it would be Chip & Potato, where the main character's family's (which is as traditional a straight 3-child family with a cop father and, for the most of the series, homemaker mom you could imagine) neighborhood also has a couple of smartly dressed male zebras who appear to have adopted children. They don't actually go "we're gay and have gay zebra sex in our bedrooms" or anything like that and feature in maybe two episodes. This is my understanding of the general extent of representation in this field, at the moment.
I think that John Oliver thing can indeed be marked in the category of "it's a bit, not actually intended for children's books oeuvre", as you indicated.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
COVID passed through their society in 2018 and served as an immunity buffer for the wuhan variant as did most of southeast Asia
Why didn't it pass through the entire world, then?
the reason has been their covid strategy despite other countries who didn't use their covid strategy with far more reliable numbers and still had similar outcomes in the first year
Which countries?
and other countries which did use their strategy and with far more reliable numbers and it failed spectacularly
Which countries?
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
Their "apply huge hammer any time there's been a case or two somewhere" strategy has worked thus far. Sure, they are probably not telling the whole truth about whatever epidemics there have been, but it's unlikely that COVID has actually passed through their society in a big way, like in, say, India; they're still virgin territory, and the reason has been their COVID strategy. There have been spates of large-scale authoritarian measures, but at some point COVID has then gone away, for a while.
Of course there's been a lot of countries that have applied a hard strategy until it was decreed that Covid has evolved to a status where nothing works any longer in keeping COVID out completely, or almost-completely; it's conceivable this simply is the point where China has to admit the same, though that won't stop them from trying for quite a bit.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1yr ago
During my over-a-decade experience in left-wing politics, I have in fact never, ever seen anone advocate for immigration for "displacing whites" in their own country. For full disclosure, over a ten years ago I was in a British Trot conference (SWP); apart from the whole business giving a good education on what Trotskyism is and why it absolutely is good there are almost no Trots in Finland, I listened to a speech by Tariq Ali where Ali offhandedly mentioned that white people are predicted to become a minority in US in the coming decades and the young British Trots cheered and clapped; then again, even in this instance, it was (at least for the clear majority) not their country that was being spoken of. (I'm not even sure if I should mention this anecdote since it feels like the sort of a thing where most of the replies to this comment inevitably would end up revolving around it.)
In a domestic context, though? Never, and I've had conversations on a wide variety of topics with people at all local levels, really, often with alcohol involved. The whole idea - and the right-wing obsession with this belief - is considered terminally strange.
The bare minimum requirement to even begin considering the statement "vegetarianism/veganism has already been extremely popular on the left" truthful would be a majority of leftists being vegetarian or vegan, which isn't even true here, where these things probably have a stronger hold on left consciousness than most other countries, and hasn't been remotely true in any of the other countries I've visited and where I've encountered leftists.
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