Tarnstellung
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User ID: 553
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
Expressing "a feeling of strong distaste for the bigotry of [a] comment" is taboo here because it doesn't actually add anything to the discussion. This is an anonymous forum; none of your friends will be outraged that you tried to engage a neo-Nazi/incel/paedo-fascist constructively instead of dismissing them without a second thought.
Realistically, a large proportion of the users and comments here are bigoted by the standards of Reddit. If you're going to post something that amounts to "yikes, sweaty" under one in every 3 or 4 comments, then you should leave, for your sake and ours. But I believe a constructive and mutually beneficial discussion can be had as long as everyone sincerely tries to "be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary". If you can do that, I urge you to stay. We could use more ideological diversity.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
Is jokes ruining the tone a common problem with the MCU? The only MCU movie I've seen is Doctor Strange and I had that exact complaint.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
How would they game a fraud detection algorithm? By not committing fraud?
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
But all the CoCs I've seen seem pretty banal. How does it exclude people? A right-wing person can just focus on the actual development and not get involved in the political disputes and they should be perfectly fine.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
This comment is an excellent demonstration that the claims from the anti-trans side of this or that being "natural" or "unnatural", and therefore objectively right or wrong, are just an attempt to rationalize their own completely subjective aesthetic preferences. How do you not see the absurdity in claiming that giving trans people actually natural hormones – ones that actual humans actually have, in nature – is wrong and denying biology, etc., while giving people with body dysmorphia (who are, like trans people, unsatisfied with their "natural" bodies) chemicals that have never existed outside a lab, and are functionally unlike any natural substance, is just "guiding" their body "along its natural path"?
What is the difference? Most immigrants came to the US not knowing English at all, and they managed just fine. Surely learning to read is easier than learning an entire foreign language.
Many immigrants weren't even literate in their native languages. This PDF (found here) claims that a majority of Southern Italian immigrants in the 1900–1903 period were illiterate. Yet Italians successfully integrated into American society.
Edit: Another source on illiterate immigrants. Apparently, it was a big concern at the time, but today there are no traces of it left. No Italian- or Irish-American knows the education level of their great-etc.-grandparents who first immigrated. In fact, a few centuries ago the vast majority of people were peasants (or even serfs!) with no "need for literacy".
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
Can you link to an example of your ideal city?
Singapore.
Is it working well there?
It's doing great! Its public transport is excellent and rates of car ownership are much lower than in America. By metrics like life expectancy and quality of health care, it's one of the best places in the world. It also has an ethnically and religiously diverse population (including a higher proportion of Muslims than any Western city), so objections that it wouldn't work in America because of a lack of cohesion are not valid.
One day about 'born in the wrong body', another day queer theory transgression. But the reality model doesn't allow both, either gender identity is an essential attribute or it's something that you can choose, that changes, you can't have both. So many contradictions, sex and gender norms need to be thrown off, yet it's sex appearance and gender stereotypes that define the desire for, and results of, transition.
Are different people saying these different things? Or have you actually seen a single individual with two clearly contradictory viewpoints?
**Eugenicists
Well less people can't hurt the environment really. If some people want to opt-out of reproduction all the power to them.
That's anti-natalism, not eugenics. And I seriously doubt that anyone is pro-trans because of anti-natalism.
Tarnstellung
11mo ago
If you are referring to the claim that Britain only got involved to defend Belgium, that is literally just British propaganda. They wanted to get involved from the very start and the Belgium thing was a convenient excuse.
Tarnstellung
11mo ago
I have never seen Salazar described as benevolent. Wikipedia says:
One opposition leader, Humberto Delgado, who openly challenged Salazar's regime in the 1958 presidential election, was first exiled and then killed by Salazar's secret police. (...) Salazar's rule is widely described as dictatorial and was characterized by systematic repression of civil and political rights, mass torture, arbitrary arrests, concentration camps, police brutality against civil rights protestors, electoral fraud and colonial wars that left hundreds of thousands dead.
I ask because I recently stumbled upon the subreddit /r/architecturalrevival and was greatly annoyed by the ignorance on display. I've been thinking of writing a critique, so when I saw your post, I was interested in hearing what someone who believes modern architecture sucks thinks. The subreddit has no real arguments: the belief that modern architecture sucks is usually implicit, and if it is ever expressed explicitly, it is in a circlejerky manner.
Would you mind sharing your opinion on the Sydney Opera House and the works of Zaha Hadid? This question is inspired by one of the most common complaints on the subreddit, something to the effect of "modern buildings are all just boring concrete and glass boxes", which is plainly false. (That's just one of their many nonsensical and ignorant claims. An exhaustive list would be very long.)
Edit: Other people's opinions are welcome, too.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
The Catholic Church does have the disadvantage of having to stick to tradition and scripture to a certain extent to maintain credibility. The Mormons have come up with a brilliant solution to this kind of problem: if a church doctrine becomes unworkable because of social change, their leadership can just say they've had a new revelation from God and the dogma has been revised. This is exactly what happened with polygamy.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
I don't think we can reasonably speculate about the teacher's sinister ulterior motives given that they asked the principal to notify the parents and it was the principal who forgot.
Given all that, I have another question: Why Michelangelo's David?
Per the BBC article:
The lesson, given to 11 and 12-year-olds, also included references to Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" painting and Botticelli's "Birth of Venus".
Both images depict nudity. Note that it isn't claimed anywhere that this is an exhaustive list. It is quite possible that other artworks that don't feature nudity were discussed in the class, and the news reporting only mentioned these three because they are pertinent.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
Came here to bring up this exact problem. I've had modhat (or rather, admin-hat) comments show up multiple times already. Presumably people angry they got told off and using the report button as a super-downvote. I think it would be best if they were just excluded entirely.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
if he was actually qualified(which he doesn’t appear to be)
What are you basing this on? He has a master's degree from MIT and has co-authored several papers on nuclear fuel. Is fashion sense more important than actual qualifications?
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
And has the EU interfered in any of this?
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree, then.
In my view, a panel of doctors, plus a public prosecutor who reviews possible abuses, is sufficient in terms of scrutiny.
Yes, people entrusted with power are sometimes malicious or incompetent, but this argument can be directed at virtually every institution in existence. Unless you have actual evidence of abuse, my priors are firmly on the side of trusting that the people who are familiar with the details and whose job it is to review these cases (and who have years of experience in doing this) have made the right decision.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
"Opposing Israel is antisemitic": episode 47239875.
Zionism is an integral aspect of the identity of many Jews.
Segregationism and secessionism is an integral aspect of the identity of many in the Southern US. That doesn't make it acceptable.
I oppose banning specific viewpoints on principle, but it is entirely possible to ban a viewpoint without this being secretly a way to ban some group whose members disproportionately hold that viewpoint. The Zionists here are trying to apply the "disparate impact" principle, which I think practically everyone on TheMotte rejects. They're not standing up for free speech, they're just standing up for their own specific belief. I'm sure they wouldn't mind banning Holocaust deniers.
(Edit: When I say that "I think practically everyone on TheMotte rejects" the principle, I'm not trying to build consensus, I'm just stating my impression that a consensus already exists.)
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
What is objectionable about that book? A boy dressing up as a princess doesn't seem any worse than other make-believe that children engage in.
Tarnstellung
9mo ago
"Any dude will be able to claim they're trans and walk into female toilets" is pretty much exactly what anti-trans activists said would happen. All the other details you mentioned are not relevant. Toilets are sex-separated, among other things, to help school staff to prevent horny teenagers from hooking up in them.
- The dude in question did not claim he was trans.
- He did not just walk into a women's bathroom and find a random victim, which is what anti-trans activists claimed would happen. The meeting was pre-arranged with the victim.
- How do you know trans-related policies are why school staff didn't prevent them from hooking up? Again, he didn't even claim he was trans, and "the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were approved only in August, more than two months after the assault". Given all that, a more banal explanation, for example that they just didn't notice, seems more likely.
You're playing language games. No one says that they're not trans, just that being trans doesn't change your sex, and that some facilities need to be sex seperated.
I tried to phrase that so as to avoid language games. That some facilities need to be sex-segregated, and that people identifying as trans should not be allowed to use such facilities under any circumstances, is what I meant by "all claims of being trans are illegitimate" and "none of their claims should be taken seriously".
It would make men feel better if they were put in female prisons too, why is happiness from affirmation more important here?
I tried to phrase that so as to imply that it is the typical argument, which means you have most likely already seen it and it is unlikely to change your mind, and I am therefore not putting much weight into it. Anyway, the specific claim is that it would make them feel better without making anyone else worse off.
There's also a case to be made that a trans woman will be a danger in a female prison.
A trans woman who has spent several years on HRT, or has had surgery, and is therefore unable to even get an erection? Again, I support having certain standards for trans people. All the cases of assault by trans women in women's prisons seem to be from prisoners who only realized they were trans after they went into prison and were promptly placed in the facilities meant for their claimed gender. This is a system that is very easy to abuse.
Has anyone asked them? I'd bet most women would be more comfortable around a trans man than a trans woman, provided they knew for a fact it's a trans man and not a cis man.
Well, I would bet that most women would be more comfortable around a passing trans woman than a passing trans man. But I admit I have no polling data on this.
Tarnstellung
10mo ago
To be clear, you are saying that wokeism is why an age of consent exists in the first place? This is the exact opposite of the claim others are making in this thread, that wokeists are secretly paedos who want to abolish the age of consent.
Tarnstellung
10mo ago
Dishonest fearmongering is the order of the day, and as I alluded to previously, it is the prevailing philosophy of those with power and influence in America. Are you actually opposed to dishonest fearmongering, or do you simply object to the outgroup enjoying its benefits?
This website exists specifically to enable intellectually honest discussion. The fact that the rest of the world is full of dishonesty is irrelevant. It's not acceptable here.
If you're killed by someone that the government had the power and even the obligation to remove from the country, but decided not to, then the government has played a role in your murder. That's an element that simply doesn't exist for the Gacys.
This is irrelevant if your actual probability of getting murdered didn't increase.
Most groups in the world have lower violent crime rates than American natives, because the American native crime rate includes the absurdly large black crime rate. Disaggregation by race would tell a different story, albeit not one that people prefer to hear, since in the popular imagining an American "native" is just some cornfed Southern good-old-boy, and there's a great audience waiting to eagerly believe such people are more violent than one's cherished client groups.
The breakdown of the native crime rate is irrelevant. Letting in immigrants with a lower crime rate still makes the country safer overall.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
Will "mortal danger" change how you look in a way that makes it obvious to women what you went through? Will it change something else about you so that women will be able to perceive it and therefore be more attracted to you?
Or is your plan to tell women that you did this? Because I expect women's reactions to someone saying they're a combat veteran and someone saying they deliberately got lost in the Alaskan wilderness would be very different. The former is hot, the latter is just weird. If you already come off as autistic in conversations, this won't help.
Tarnstellung
1yr ago
Dark net operations can be taken down without backdoors. We know this because it happens regularly. Granted, it often relies on a stupid mistake on the part of the people running the show, but humans are a very reliable source of stupid mistakes.
Cryptography can't protect cryptocurrency. At some point, the magic internet money has to interface with the real world. Hasn't China banned cryptocurrency? I haven't really been following the news. Has it been effective?
I think you may not realize how widely used cryptography is. With HTTPS, every time you browse the web, you are using state-of-the-art encryption algorithms. Without encryption, if you logged in somewhere on a public Wi-Fi network, everyone sharing the network would see your password, as would your ISP and anyone in the long chain between you and the website's servers. The modern internet wouldn't work at all without cryptography, and if you make it available for general internet use, you can't prevent it from being used by the bad guys.
The maximally dystopian horror example case is: onlyfans for live streamed child rape / snuff films with tens of thousands of men watching from behind Guy Fawkes masks beating off and tipping tens of thousands of dollars an hour. Everyone involved, the viewers and performers, completely anonymous and untraceable.
This is a ridiculously unrealistic scenario. It sounds like it was dreamt up by a paranoid, technologically-illiterate boomer who falls for chain email hoaxes that show up on Snopes. For one, only a handful of the most popular Twitch streamers manage to get a viewership in the tens of thousands, and the demand for people saying funny things while playing video games is many orders of magnitude higher than the demand for child rape and snuff. I also recall reading (I think it was in a Reddit AMA with a paedophile, it may have even been on /r/themotte) that money isn't a major motivator for the "industry" and that the people who produce those kinds of videos are mostly enthusiasts who make it and share it to raise their status or because they just genuinely enjoy it. (How heartwarming.)
OK, pacemakers are the only good argument against the ban I've seen so far. The only research paper that I can find is this one from 2006:
I don't know what that means TBH.
Having exhausted the scientific literature, I tried the next best thing: Reddit. There are anecdotal reports from people with pacemakers cooking with induction and people with pacemakers who were told by their doctors not to cook with induction. No reports from people with pacemakers who tried cooking with induction and died.
Edit: And what about people who have embedded metal fragments that can't be removed? I guess my ban isn't a very good idea after all.
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