Tarnstellung
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User ID: 553
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
It wasn’t without a fight, either: this was absolutely one of the culture wars.
Accommodations for people with disabilities are not nearly as divisive as trans issues. Divisiveness is a key feature for something to be part of the "culture war", according to my interpretation of the term at least.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Can you provide some context on the bicycle ban? What is their stated reasoning? For example, I could understand such a ban based on a lack of space, because a mediaeval city centre probably has narrow streets, but this can't be the case given the taxis.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Where are these reports and what, specifically, are they alleging?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
and know the schools key TSMC employees kids will go to.
What are you suggesting? That they should kill the employees' kids?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
That letter is actually perfectly reasonable. Half of it isn't even about riots, but about studies conducted on convicted murderers in other countries.
I'd be interested in finding out whether anything came out of that line of research.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Croatian has one word for sex (male or female; a different word is used for coitus) and another for grammatical gender. I've seen some left-wing politicians use the word for grammatical gender like the word for sex, for example, talking about "gender discrimination".
A few years ago there was a controversy in Croatia regarding the adoption of the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty "Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence". The treaty mentions "gender", which some right-wing politicians interpreted as promoting homosexuality or something. It was eventually adopted and nothing of note has happened.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Pre-modern life, with its constant wars, famines and other horrors, would have surely resulted in a greater proportion of morally deformed people.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
A plumber, police officer or teacher can't easily switch to a different employer and get twice the pay. Many people probably do decide to become police officers or teachers (not sure about plumbers) because they care, but once they do, they're locked in, unless they want to start an entirely different career from scratch.
I don't know what "status offerings" are, but I don't think working in academia is much higher-status than working for a biotech company, especially given the difference in pay. Isn't income the primary determinant of status?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
The cleavage site, important for how the disease develops, is unlikely to emerge naturally without other changes to the genome - yet this is what happened. It was probably done artificially by the Ecohealth people who were asking for money to do just that (the US turned them down for the initial grant a few years prior to COVID but they could've found another source of funds).
You go from "this is unlikely to happen naturally" to "it was probably artificial, and I know who did it!". That looks like a huge leap to me.
Are you an expert on molecular biology, epidemiology, etc.? I'm not. I'm getting most of my information from this Wikipedia article, checking out the references, googling. My impression is that the investigation of the lab-leak theory was initially hindered when Trump endorsed the theory, which made it part of the culture war, but now it's back on track: it's no longer a taboo topic, people are looking into it and there's a healthy discussion going on, which should eventually produce some kind of consensus.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Why are they doing this? Does the world really need the information that if you mess with parts of Omicron, COVID and the spike proteins, you get something that makes Ebola look benign?
According to the last sentence in the extract you posted, they're studying the causes of pathogenicity and vaccine escape in Omicron. Without looking into it further, this seems like a very worthwhile research topic, with immediate applicability.
Otherwise all hell breaks lose, there's a massive blow to the credibility of their profession and an end to the gravy train of exciting, fun research and govt grants.
There is no "gravy train". Anyone working on this kind of research could easily be making twice as much money working in industry (biotech/pharma). They're working on this because they care.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
The proposal you're talking about is called a common ownership self-assessed tax, or COST.
I'm sympathetic to Georgism, and COST seems like a good idea for purely economic assets (e.g. farmland), but actually implementing it for housing would probably impose large social costs which would outweigh the economic benefits. People tend to get emotionally attached to their homes in a way that can't really be quantified.
As another comment said, eminent domain exists for the rare situation where a small number of people are preventing development. Everyone else should feel safe knowing their home won't be expropriated.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Socialist economic systems are bad because they don't incentivize producing what people want. But no one actually produces land (land reclamation is negligible). Hence, Georgist "land communism" can't result in the same kind of failure as everything-else communism.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
That seems fine then, as long as it's freshly-squeezed natural juice and not industrially-produced junk.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
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On the default theme, there is a line separating different top-level comments, and the line that collapses comments is visible. I use the "reddit" theme (which actually doesn't resemble Reddit very much; it's just a nice theme: dark, but not too dark like the actual "dark" theme) and both lines are invisible, though the collapse-line is still functional. I haven't checked, but this may also be the case with other non-default themes.
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The "Website Backgrounds" option in the "Profile" tab in the settings doesn't seem to do anything. If this is intentional, maybe remove the option?
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In the "Content" tab, there is an option to "Disable signatures". I believe signatures have been removed site-wide, so the option is redundant.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I don't know much about Roos, I've never heard of him before, but does he have much bipartisan cred?
The term "bipartisan" doesn't really apply in European politics, unless the two "parties" you're referring to are abstract pro- and anti-vaccination groups.
That said, he is apparently a member of a fringe right-wing party, so my guess would be "no".
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Maybe stop doing that?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I don't think advanced mathematics has been solved by computers...
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
What is "topology" in this context?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
OK then, "easing" or "partially lifting" the restrictions?
Or are they planning to implement some entirely new restrictions?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
If you can build what you want on your land
And isn't that what the activists are asking for? Lifting restrictions on construction?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
people who, for instance, will give a baby soda in their bottle
Do people actually do this? Why would anyone ever do this?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
How exactly do cars, single family homes, and meat (of all things) make people harder to control?
Also, are you saying single family homes and car culture are not a cause of poor urban planning, which makes housing inaccessible, worsens people's health (as they just drive a car everywhere instead of walking) and contributes to climate change (as people need to drive everywhere, hence using more fuel)?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Johnson was ousted from power because of Partygate, what more could you ask for?
From 2016: Connecticut woman says she was harassed in Walmart bathroom after customer mistook her as transgender (archive link because the website is unavailable in the EU). However, it seems in this case there is no evidence beyond the woman's claim.
Also from 2016, this time with a video of the incident: Man follows woman into restroom after mistaking her for a man (archived). This was apparently a simple misunderstanding that was resolved amicably.
While searching, I also found this article from 2008 (!): Woman mistaken for a man settles NY lawsuit.
This Twitter thread discusses another example.
So it does seem to happen. And I would assume that not every such incident makes the news.
But blaming trans people for this is ridiculous. How is it their fault that people prejudiced against them sometimes accidentally target insufficiently feminine-looking cis women? In fact, I've always considered these false-positive incidents a strong argument in favour of letting trans people use the toilet corresponding to their identified gender.
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