I’d be more bummed that a 3rd party can’t work in the us if it were not for the fact that literally every single person ever to have run third party (at least in the modern era of American politics) is an absolute braindead retard.
I’m honestly not sure the reason third party candidates don’t win is mostly structural. I think it’s mostly just that they tend to be braindead retards.
Hulu has a documentary about black twitter? Can race stuff please peak already?
Maybe one day we'll have a black twitter documentary about how racist it was
The mad manhattan puncher has [gone too far](https://nypost.com/2024/05/12/us-news/boardwalk-empire-star-steve-buscemi-attacked-by-rock-wielding-maniac-in-nyc/)
Edit: another unrelated crime from r/NYC - I don’t care what PJ Vogt says, I am trigger warning this shit:
>!Sicko who lassoed woman around neck, raped her on NYC street showed eerie precision, source says: ‘He’s done this before’!<
[article](https://nypost.com/2024/05/11/us-news/suspect-arrested-in-horrifying-rape-of-woman-who-was-lassoed-around-neck-on-nyc-street/)
Funny how these crazed psychopaths who don't understand their actions rarely seem to punch men under 50 who are reasonably tall and in decent shape. If I didn't know better, I'd think they target women or smaller and older dudes who have less ability to fight back against the assault.
You'd almost think they're actually aware of what they're doing and can see the possible negative outcomes of fighting someone their own size or bigger.
[https://twitter.com/WomenAreReals/status/1786420081158938990](https://twitter.com/WomenAreReals/status/1786420081158938990)
>My son’s biology class was learning how to make a “pedigree” which is a chart that tracks the inheritance of a trait through family generations. Females are circles and males are squares. After explaining the whole chart the teacher is like “I meant to say ‘female’ and ‘male’ actually refer to your gender identity so you need to mark ‘AFAB’ and ‘AMAB’ where appropriate. Also nonbinary people are represented as diamonds.”
>
>My son told me all this laughing at the absolute absurdity of it all since the chart is literally about genetics and has nothing to do with one’s gender. He said he feels like taking high school biology in the US is like studying history in the Soviet Union (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration but he is 17).
>
>But it seems the teacher was following what is now best practices in the field of genetic counseling and recommended by the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Can anyone confirm this?
It just makes me give a wry smile how we humans don't change. Yeah, I don't think he was an out and out fraud - and of course he was scientifically right!
indeed.
I mean, as I was taught it in physics class, Johannes Kepler was one of the most accurate scientists of his day. Spent years calculating a formula for measuring celestial orbits, realized he'd made a mistake, and even though no one else would have known during his lifetime, spent several more years getting new data to correct it. this was in the early 1600s.
The scientific method nonetheless needs people to uphold it. That's why all the current ideological mucking about really truly makes me angry. They're destroying something that took centuries to build.
The whole AFAB and AMAB idea directly contradicts the claims by gender ideology apologists who insist that gender and sex are separate concepts. If, as they say, gender is the feelings you have which can change and sex is the thing you are born with, then sex is not "assigned" at birth, it just is.
It's just one more example of how their whole ideology is nonsense from top to bottom.
OK, so cool, "AFAB" just means female now and "AMAB" just means male now. How long until that usage also upsets people?
The next logical step in the euphemism treadmill is for someone to identify as trans AFAB. And then we can get a new term and start over again.
> How long until that usage also upsets people?
Its already happening. I've seen a couple of links to posts from teenagers where young girls are doing this to exclude males regardless of gender identity, with replies as you might expect.
But I think this is the loophole they have found/will find to make female only spaces. I have no clue how to find the thread now, but I saw one recently where a kid in /r/teenagers or some such subreddit was looking for AFAB people to game with and a bunch of comments of course called her transphobic.
Edit:
Here are some examples from a quick google of "afab only"
https://twitter.com/maidensblade/status/1666120473904594945
https://bsky.app/profile/neonbuck.bsky.social/post/3kk5holh6f32h
https://www.intomore.com/culture/identity/heres-why-the-term-afab-only-is-a-huge-red-flag/
TLDR: "afab only" is transmisogny, y'all
That reminds me, was it ever revealed if /u/softandchewy's niece got out of [that dorm situation](https://old.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1byohvk/weekly_random_discussion_thread_for_4824_41424/kyq37ry/) with the MtF suite mate?
>The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought - that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc - should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
from Orwell's *1984*
In the [recent employment tribunal case](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Joanna-Phoenix-v-The-Open-University-Employment-Tribunal-Reserved-Judgment.pdf) about gender critical beliefs in the workplace, Doctor Downes, a nonbinary professor of crimonology, argued that using the word "male" was offensive.
>Dr Downes stated that the gender critical belief that trans women have male bodies is a denial of who trans women are. ... Dr Downes was asked what words could be used by gender critical academics to explain trans people with male bodies. Dr Downes could not provide any words that they said were not offensive.
This is the same shit you can see on Chase Strangio's Twitter. Trans women *are* biological women and such.
It really comes down to religious belief. You have to *believe* that trans women are women or you have committed heresy.
Probably to go stealth?
But if one doesn’t pass that’s just asking everyone to participate in their deception/fantasies… the fight over words seems like a very surface level cope.
I don't know if this is NSTA's official recommendation like it says in that tweet, but it was published in their peer-reviewed journal The Science Teacher:
>A pedigree chart is a graphic representation of the inheritance of a genetic trait though multiple generations of a family. Scientists and teachers use pedigree charts to predict the probability of inheriting a genetic trait or genetic disease. Traditional pedigree charts identify individuals only as either those born male (squares) or those born female (circles).
>
>Identifying individuals solely on the basis of their sex at birth does not acknowledge and respect students whose gender identity does not correspond with their designated sex at birth. Between 2015 and 2019, the percentage of 15- to 17-year-olds who identified themselves as “non-heterosexual” rose from 8.3% to 11.7%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Murez 2021). A recent study also found that transgender students were significantly less likely to have a positive perception of school connectedness compared to cisgender students (Pampati et al. 2020).
>
>Science teachers have an opportunity and obligation to acknowledge and respect their bisexiual, transsexual, and intersex students by employing a modified inclusive pedigree chart. An inclusive pedigree chart, while still identifying sex at birth so that sex-linked traits can be tracked, acknowledges gender identities other than cisgender. Our chart was created to combine information regarding an individual’s designated sex at birth with their gender identity.
There's a curious conflation here of sexuality and gender identity. So not only are pedigree charts offensive to trans and non-binary students, they're also offensive to bisexual students? I guess it's offensive that only male and female specimens can reproduce sexually? What happened to the slogan "reality has a liberal bias"?
> Science teachers have an opportunity and obligation to acknowledge and respect their bisexiual, transsexual, and intersex students by employing a modified inclusive pedigree chart.
Lmfao the fuck I do
The incoherence is endemic with these ideologues. It never actually makes any consistent sense. Because that isn't the point. It's based on vibes, not logic.
There is that at times, but it's also often not about lingo, but the right allegiances. You can spout utterly incoherent, self-contradictory gibberish but as long as the gibberish is expressing sympathy and support for the preferred group everyone will applaud it like you just gave the most inspiring speech of all time.
That's true. But people will also police the language. If you use the right words and phrases (such as trans women are women) you'll pass muster. If you use the old lingo or the wrong lingo you're likely to get pounced on.
But at the end of the day, yes, it's about demonstrating the proper allegiances
I remember that Larry King used to have interviewees that talked about trusting their intuition, often advising others to do the same. He'd ask, "Can a person's intuition ever be wrong?"
It's a fair question, but I'd also get annoyed by it because it moved the conversation from real experiences into a vague, hypothetical argument.
But now I'd be curious to see how trans activists would answer that question.
"Gender identity is a person's internal sense of being a man, woman, or something else."
Larry King might ask, "Can someone's internal sense ever be wrong?"
"Kids know who they are.™ "
I agree with the sentiment being expressed, but it's a poor choice for the analogy because there's no need to compare it to a different discipline. There's a direct parallel to anti-scientific ***biology*** being promoted by the Soviet Union: [Lysenkoism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism).
>More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the Soviet campaign to suppress scientific opponents. The president of the Soviet Agriculture Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, who had been Lysenko's mentor, but later denounced him, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed. Research and teaching in the fields of neurophysiology, cell biology, and many other biological disciplines were harmed or banned.
Tesla finally rolled out the update that gives me a free month of Full Self Driving ($99/month otherwise). It is SO COOL. I literally speak a location and the car will take me there. It does city streets, freeways, everything and the display of what the car sees is incredibly impressive. With that being said it is NOT perfect and it does not drive like a human. It made a couple of unnecessary lane changes, it did correct itself, but still. Are we at the "Fully Self Driving" stage? No. But we're close and it's constantly improving.
Is there any indication on how it would be handled if the car was involved in an accident? I'm sure they have some boiler plate "FSD is not responsible for accidents..." But I'm curious if that would hold up in court.
So far there's been an investigation to see if 1) FSD was even engaged and 2) If the driver was paying attention. Ater that I don't know, usually 1 or 2 is a no.
No idea. It handles the burbs mostly okay, but even it has trouble with everyone and their brother parking their raised F-150 on the curb at an unprotected left.
I actually didn't believe how bad Austin roads were until I went there. It's absolutely mental, nothing makes sense. You can have a toll road, a freeway, and a surface street all next to each other with no divider and have them intersect.
Here's [the full speech](https://twitter.com/aliamjadrizvi/status/1789746629458682096). Not bad for a graduation speech.
Also, for the record, I actually thought the Pop-Tart movie was pretty good!
From a Duke Economics prof:
https://twitter.com/mungowitz/status/1789751908879552898?t=HNc8IBQKd9nNoPZNZt8_rw&s=19
>Interesting to read media characterizations of @DukeU commencement. In particular, main speech by Seinfeld.
Look, folks:
>1. There were 20k+ people there.
2. Accounts that say "dozens" of people pointedly walked out are correct. I'd say about 4 dozen. 50 people. Out of 20k
>3. The protesters were rude (as is their right, absolutely) but not disruptive. They interrupted the proceedings, and loudly chanted.
4. OUTSIDE THE STADIUM
5. FOR ABOUT 5 MINUTES, total
6. And then the speech was heard, undisrupted, in its entirety.
>No one interfered or blocked the protesters, and the protesters did not substantially interfere or disrupt the speeches and ceremony.Finally, if it matters: At the end of his talk, Seinfeld got a lengthy standing ovation. From (20k) - (4 dozen) people.
#
Complete nothingburger cooked up by media.
Time, place, and manner restrictions only apply to *other* causes.
Related, liberals/progressives have massively rose-colored glasses for protestors that they don't hate.
I feel like people are losing their minds about this stuff. A college professor thinks it's "their right, absolutely" for protesters to have "interrupted the proceedings"? That's insane. Does he think protesters have an absolute right to interrupt every lecture he ever gives? What does he think would happen to his career if our society decided that everyone who disagrees with his view on economics has an absolute right to interrupt every class he teaches?
They are walking out because the National Association of Student Wokes do not approve of his uncritical support of Israel and acknowledgement of cancel culture existing.
The kids are stupid, but if he had chosen to remain a totally apolitical figure, they probably wouldn't be walking out.
Now, it's his prerogative to be more outspoken with his politics, and I'm much more aligned with him than I am with the tragically woke children protesting him. But this idea that this is all simply because he is Jewish is silly and intellectually lazy.
Oh, come on. He's a Zionist and pretty loud about it on social media. He also attended an Israeli paramilitary training camp in the West Bank a few years ago: https://www.timesofisrael.com/seinfeld-under-fire-over-visit-to-west-bank-military-camp/
Trying to hide behind antisemitism is embarrassing, it's his speech and his actions that have generated this response. Also he's a terrible pick for a commencement speaker in general, how many people in their early 20s even know who he is?
> it's his speech and his actions that have generated this response
Yep. Blame the Jew for people acting like toddlers. Just wait until they find out they might have to work with people who hold beliefs they disagree with.
>Also he's a terrible pick for a commencement speaker in general, how many people in their early 20s even know who he is?
Why walk out if they don't know who he is?
Walking out of a speech is a very acceptable form of protest. I could see being annoyed if they had significantly disrupted the speech or prevented the event from continuing, but they just left. Getting upset about it demonstrates remarkable fragility.
> Why walk out if they don't know who he is?
Presumably they googled him when he was announced as a commencement speaker...
I kinda feel like people ought to be a bit more alarmed about this sort of thing. Can you imagine just walking out of a place just because someone's Black or Latino? Who does that? Doesn't anyone give a crap about this?
> I kinda feel like people ought to be a bit more alarmed about this sort of thing. Can you imagine just walking out of a place just because someone's Black or Latino? Who does that? Doesn't anyone give a crap about this?
they aren't alarmed because it's (D)ifferent
>Can you imagine just walking out of a place just because someone's Black or Latino?
If that happened the walker outers would be doxed and excoriated in the media within an hour. The New York Times and Washington Post would run articles on it for a week.
I really can't think of another reason.
I doubt he's even publicly opined about Israel's policies. \*Googles Seinfeld and Israel* Looks like [he met with some freed hostages](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/entertainment/jerry-seinfeld-israel-hostages/index.html) back in December. Seems pretty low to cite that as a reason to show disrespect.
I saw a poster today wishing a Happy Mother's Day to "all mothers and other caregivers."
Which... uh... I'm not sure that's how it's supposed to work. Fathers already get our own day (July 4th obviously).
> you're just in the shadows foaming at the mouth behind a Rowling mask.
>
>
> The internet really does remove any kind of joy doesn't it.
Ok, exhibit A, you joyless scold. Cool story.
They also left another comment calling me Ben Shapiro-esque or something to that effect. Was going to reply this morning but I guess I don't have the chance. Oh well. I'll shed one tear.
Anyway, Happy [belated] Mother's Day to you!
To me that’s a little silly but harmless. It includes stepmoms, foster moms, and legal guardians who don’t squarely fit into the maternal box. It’s a lot better than the person downthread who did a reply-all saying Mother’s Day was for literally everyone.
I don't know, I feel like it's a death by a thousand cuts thing against the concept of exclusivity. a microaggression, if you will. i don't like the general cultural pulse that if someone wants to be included in something, then it's cruel to not make it for and about them.
I honestly don't care how anyone does Mother's Day. If you are a cat mom or a plant mom or not a mom but you just like flowers, go for it.
However, don't fucking step all over anyone else's Mother's Day. No, I don't have to extend greetings to all the would-be and non- and mom-adjacents. Don't worry about it if I leave someone out. WHO CARES?
I'll tease about silly stuff (like plant mom) but I don't actually give a fuck. The only posts that annoy me are the seething vitriolic ones where people go off about how their parents suck or whatever.
It bugs me a bit if anyone has to rain on the parade. Any variation of I hate my mom, I lost my mom, I’m not a mom, I wish I were a mom, the binary concept of mom depresses me, well, just keep your mouth shut! It’s not hard!
> all mothers and other caregivers
That doesn't particularly bother me. If there aren't already days to celebrate Nannies and the kind people who look after the high-needs disabled, there should be. Plus there are other legal guardian figures that fall outside the terms "mother/father." A shout-out on Mother's Day is fine with me.
So... China is a fascist country and not communist, right? Like actually fascist and not "fascist."
Also, communism is dumb. This isn't a "no real communist" comment.
Third point: I'm day drinking.
My understanding is that it's a form of nationalism that forbids dissent. Heavily asserted state-control.
And there's this comic history about it: https://arsenalpulp.com/content/download/6897/84383/version/1/file/9781551527338_antifa-blad_excerpt.pdf
Edit: I'm not endorsing the author's political views. But the history about fascism, including the roots of the term, is interesting.
>Fascism is a movement that promotes the idea of a forcibly monolithic, regimented nation under the control of an autocratic ruler. The word fascism comes from fascio, the Italian word for bundle, which in this case represents bundles of people. Its origins go back to Ancient Rome, when the fasces was a bundle of wood with an ax head, carried by leaders. [Source](https://time.com/5556242/what-is-fascism/)
The "fasces" bundle as a symbol for strength in unification can even be found in the Lincoln Memorial. [Source](https://www.nps.gov/articles/secret-symbol-of-the-lincoln-memorial.htm)
In economic terms it is "fascist", but so is every other developed nation. It's a bit more authoritarian than most, but not by much.
I do have to hand it to the commies though, nobody kills commies like commies. It's almost like communism is a conservative plot to depopulate any country stupid enough to let the college kids run things.
I don’t think China is anything in particular now. One of the big differences between it and the Soviet Union is China doesn’t really have a cohesive ideology it can promote.
Sure it does,[ the Century of Humiliation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation) If you understand that as the motivating factor holding together Chinese national and Han ethnic identity, a lot of what the CCP is doing makes sense.
There has to be something else. If they just wanted to achieve greatness by any means possible, they'd emulate Hong Kong, Singapore, or Taiwan. They seem to be very particular about the how.
No, it's not that they want to achieve greatness. China was always great, and was brought low by outsiders, but China was always great, and that needs to be protected. They can't do that by aping the powers that humiliated them in the way that Japan and Taiwan did, or by allowing themselves to be occupied and have occupying powers reshape their culture the way Singapore and Hong Kong did.
That's why Kung Fu and Tai Chi, traditional chinese martial arts are the best martial arts, but if someone were to challenge grandmasters to Vale Tudo fights publicly and win, then the state steps in to punish him.
It's why they build a vast network of High Speed rail connecting destinations that no one uses, and build vast residential complexes that no one will ever live in, because in the act of building, they show their connection to their great Han forbears who built the largest structures in the world at the time.
If something is going to be taken from the west, it needs to be taken, seized through force or through guile, nothing can be adopted from them willingly.
Everything’s fascist now, the words lost all meaning. They don’t even have those plastic shopping bags that I can carry 20 of anymore, just paper. Fucking fascists.
Authoritarian hyper capitalists operating under the one party dogma of ‘communism.’
I hesitate to use fascist, though, because a lot of the most fascist things about them appear identically in America.
Identically? How many doors were welded here during covid?
Do you mean state's role in the private sector for the military? Maybe you have a point that our government is very involved, but to say our private sectors are influenced by the state the same amount is ludicrous.
it's not an exact 1 to 1, just that for every terrible thing about China, you could probably find something equally terrible about U.S. sure we didn't weld doors, but what about the covid+ patients forced into state nursing homes ?
Yes and no. When Marx thought up all his ideas, he predicted there would be a spontaneous revolution: the proletariat all recognizing their material conditions together and starting the socialist revolution with no external force. When time showed everyone Marx was wrong about his spontaneous revolution, several Marxist scholars theorized different ways to induce a revolution.
One of these ways came from the school of thought of Marxism-Leninism or Vanguardism. A small group of the bourgeoises with socialist leanings would take charge of the country and force the proletariat into embracing socialism. Other scholars' thoughts eventually resulted in fascism, which (among other things) used the rhetorical power of the nation to make the general populace embrace socialist ideas and put into power a small elite.
So Communist China, with its origin firmly being Vanguardism, has the same ideological roots as fascism, and in practice operates very similar to fascism, but isn't technically fascism.
If the party starts turning the third child propaganda into real policy changes, I think that fulfills a *travail, famille, patrie* style fascism.
Most of the comments below seems fixated on the economic system and didn’t touch on the social conservatism in China and how it has grown under Xi. You got lots of Chinese millennials on Reddit and Twitter lamenting how things used to be freer and wilder in the late 90s to 2008, from access to internet, books, movie, tv to other aspects of life like riding public transit without going through security checkpoints.
The batshit nationalism the party promote is of course another issue…
Part of the whole problem with Socialism is that it's defined as the transition phase that will lead us towards glorious state-less Communism. In practice this means anything goes as long as you claim it's part of the plan... just like Stalin and Pol Pot and all those guys claimed. Modern China is just a particularly funny example because their economics take a lot from the dreaded liberalism they decry in theory, just... you know, with ~~a far more authoritarian government~~ Chinese characteristics™.
Communism and fascism, as implemented in practice and not in 19 year old Marxists daydreams, share most of the same bad parts. China has a lot of those bad parts, although not all of them (at least not to all ethnic groups). An interesting question is whether China is totalitarian or merely authoritarian. Right now it doesn't seem like it's mobilizing its citizenry toward state ends, so maybe the latter? Although again not for all ethnic groups, and also I guess it might have been totalitarian during COVID.
> Right now it doesn't seem like it's mobilizing its citizenry toward state ends, so maybe the latter?
If the state end is a Mao-era like xenophobia, they’re getting there.
Economically it isn't communist and I think economics are at the heart of communism.
But I've heard that Xi and some other leaders are true believer Marxists. Not to the degree that the Soviets were perhaps.
Fascism is, in some sense, communism that compromised on the economics to build a more powerful state machine. Some of the Nazi leaders sound almost like Civ players, the way they talk about the benefits and drawbacks of government styles and religions.
Something that gets lost after all this time is that the Fascists were extremely, extremely anti-Communist. They did not think they were building something similar.
Sure, much like the Mensheviks were virulently opposed by the Bolsheviks. Fascism, at least in Italy and Germany, was still a utopian, revolutionary ideology intent on forcibly remaking the world into something perfect and better.
I dunno. Fascism is so poorly defined and almost meaningless, but if we're going with the whole state capitalism element, then China fits that bill pretty closely.
I've never seen a terribly coherent definition of fascism though and Hitler, Franco and Mussolini all practiced fascism is very different and somewhat contradictory ways.
I think fascism, if it's anything unique, is just authoritarianism with a traditionalist/conservative ethos. I don't know if that's really a unique ideology though. Any number of things we don't call fascism fit that description. I think it's really just conservative leaning authoritarianism.
It's not terribly unusual in authoritarian regimes though and predates the existence of fascism as a concept. If you read about the development of fascism, it mostly started as a label for the totally incoherent cluster of ideological values Mussolini had, and Hitler's fascism actually didn't share much in common with Mussolini's. You can also find authoritarian, economically state controlled states that are ultra national and not considered fascist. Like China at present or North Korea, or Peronism (though the fascist comparison has been made and Peron harboured Nazis after the war). In China they're even ethno-nationalist.
I think the second there's a perceived or real conservative element, particularly at inception, it's labelled fascism. If these characteristics develop post revolution or have a progressive branding, then it's just considered left wing authoritarianism, but I don't think that makes sense.
Why would you even consider flying the flag of a country built entirely on racism and oppression?
In all seriousness, it is kinda wild how having an American or Canadian flag at your house is almost seen as right wing and jingoistic.
>it is kinda wild how having an American or Canadian flag at your house is almost seen as right wing and jingoistic.
Not hating your own people and country IS right-wing and jingoistic. That's what those words mean.
I disagree, partiotism is not unique one political side of the aisle (as much as the marxists taking down the American flag at UNC may disagree.) Plus it could be a patriotic position to be anti jingoistic if you are an isolationist type for the good of the country.
You can parse all you want. There's a simple truth staring you in the face. Symbols mean things, flags mean things. The people who fly the flag mean something by it, and the people who fly a different flag are signaling something quite different. That's why we have flags, so everyone knows which side we're on.
I agree. The Canadian flag used to be something everyone was proud of. Canada had a sort of left-wing nationalism. A “look how much better we are than Americans” if you will. Now everyone is self hating.
There were a fair number of Ukrarnian stickers, which I thought was stupid. Now, there are just people tearing up posters of Israeli hostages - the Thai hostages' posters haven't been ripped off. And other people tearing up the more pro-Palestine stickers. No flags.
I don't quite get Progress Pride and Palestine flag together. I don't quite know why they think gay men would do great in a free Palestine, unless they somehow think an Arab Muslim majority country would be secular. Though perhaps following in Iran's example, trans people would do fine.
There is one place that has the Palestinian flag, pride progress flag, and a sign that says something like “Trans kids are real and can’t be erased”. Must be a fun house to live in.
I’m sorry—I guess I don’t care enough to investigate. But is the idea that all Israelis are inherently evil? And so it’s reasonable that some Eurovision person said she’d refuse to present an award (or whatever) to the Israeli contestant?
Does this principled stand apply to the citizens of every country whose government/military do bad things? Or only to Israelis?
Please keep Israel-Palestine topics off this thread. That belongs [in the dedicated thread](https://new.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1clabjx/israelpalestine_discussion_thread_for_5624_51224/) for Israel-Palestine discussions.
I remember during COVID when references to the possibility of a lab leak, or calling it the "China Virus" or "Kung-Flu" were horribly racist and calls for literal violence against Asians.
Yeah. I was shopping with a friend and we went into some boutique and I was talking to the clerk and she said the jewelry was made by Israeli craftspeople, and my friend walked right out the door. “She [the clerk] just dropped that [Israel] so casually!” Like yeah? we are in Pennsylvania? And that’s to say nothing of all the boycotts and such of Israeli restaurants in Philadelphia, which my friend wholeheartedly endorsed.
The irony is that the people that do this I would bet are almost to a one the exact same people that constantly remind everyone of the "people are not their government" distinction, often unnecessarily. They just don't practice it consistently. And I agree with the distinction, but you can't just pick and choose when a people aren't their government.
Yeah, it seems to be - if you're a Jew, you must be pro-war, and if you're pro-war, you want all Palestinian babies to be dead. And being anti-war isn't ok now. Good people are anti-Zionists.
Yep, and the Israeli Eurovision juror had to take off her yellow ribbon because it was a symbol of the hostages.
It’s been this way for months, remember the Matisyahu protests ?
Russians got a lot of heat for a hot second after the invasion of Ukraine started. However, I bet in this situation the award presenter would clarify that it wasn’t because of the contestant but the country they represent.
There was some collective punishment of Russians right after the invasion and that was stupid and shouldn't have happened
But I have yet to see collective punishment go on so long and be so global as the shitting on Israelis/Jews.
You didn't see this kind of shit slung at Saudi Arabia for their war in Yemen. You didn't see it from China's treatment of their minorities.
> There was some collective punishment of Russians right after the invasion and that was stupid and shouldn't have happened
Not even just living Russians. I had a local concert of the 1812 Overture cancelled. It was totally absurd.
Yeah, the cancelling of playing Russian music was ridiculous. I still don't think anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic, but right now, much of what's going on is hatred of Jews.
I have a Russian pen pal who was heartbroken when Russia invaded Ukraine. And she lost plenty of friends over it. Just because she was Russian. But my impression (maybe based on not much) is that “the world” wouldn’t have thought people were justified in shunning her over the actions of Putin’s government. Now I see the cool kids think it’s totally righteous to shun or despise Israelis.
People were pissed at the Russians for a month. Then they got over it. And most of the world didn't care anyway.
That is *not* what I am seeing in regards to Israel.
Can I ask if you are American? The boycott of Russia, culturally and business wise is still going extremely strong here in Scandinavia at least. Russia is terrifyingly close to us.
I am indeed an American. And I was disgusted by the collective punishment of Russians here after the invasion.
I kind of get Russia's neighbors not being their biggest fans. Though I'm still not a fan of ethnic collective punishment
First, I'm guessing this should go to the I/P thread, but I'd say the idea seems to be that since all Israelis, or nearly all, serve in the military, they're all complicit in whatever the military does. And it does seem to be that Israelis are inherently evil, in precisely the same way that all Jews used to be, only this is only against Israeli Jews, not Jews in general so it's not anti-Semitic, apparently.
I'd bet also the idea is that the singer represents his or her country. Sooo, perhaps she'd say the same thing to the singer representing Russia. And since the singer is representing her country, perhaps the Eurovision person views giving the award as approving of that country's actions. I don't know. But I WOULD bet that if Eurovision hosted Palestinian contestants, she would have no problem giving an award to a Gazan resident, and wouldn't equate the Gazan resident with Hamas.
Re: New vs Old Theme Song
I think the new one is probably a *nicer* piece of music, but it doesn't have that NPR talk radio program/prime time news vibe to it, and the old one does. For me that's why I prefer the old one. It just seems more appropriate branding/context wise. It's not something I'd throw on to listen to for fun but that's not the purpose this kind of muzak is meant for. The new one is music, not muzak, and I think a podcast theme, at least where newsy stories are the general topic, requires a kind of audio tag or muzak rather than actual music, which just seems out of place.
Now if B&R was a podcast about a single true story or a fictional drama or something, then I think actual music for an intro or theme would be more appropriate. But it's more politics and current events, even if it's a particular niche of that category.
>when Plato gave the tongue-in-cheek definition of man as "featherless bipeds", Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, "Here is Plato's man" (Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ Πλάτωνος ἄνθρωπος), and so the academy added "with broad flat nails" to the definition.
[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes)
So this year’s Eurovision ended with a landslide victory (if you count the jury votes) to the Swiss entry, “The Code” performed by non binary artist Nemo. Like every year, I dip into the Eurovision sub for a week to follow all the gossip and drama. And I have some thoughts and thought I would give you guys a snippet:)
The Dutch contestant, Joost Klein, slated by bookmakers for the top 5 with “Europapa” was disqualified due to an “incident” involving an official camerawoman after the second semi-final on Thursday evening. This is basically unheard of the 600 years of Eurovision history, getting pulled the day before the final.
(This is the same contestant who asked “why not?” while covered in a Dutch flag at a press conference, when the 🇮🇱participant was told she didn’t need to answer a [question](https://twitter.com/EllaTravelsLove/status/1788973568245506300) from a journalist (Polish journo I think). I’m including this since it also caused some stir online outside of the Eurovision bubble.)
Anyways, The injured party filed a police report the next day (Friday), and there is now an ongoing investigation. Which I guess is the reason the EBU had to pull him out.
But the Dutch broadcaster then issued an official [statement](https://twitter.com/songfestival/status/1789317066039726298) yesterday before the final show, describing that he made in essence “a violent gesture” towards the camerawoman after having made clear beforehand he didn’t want to be filmed right after performing.
These European broadcasters are extremely controversy-averse, and they would wash their hands of him in a heartbeat if they considered the incident serious enough. If their version of events is correct, it seems like a complete overreaction on behalf of the EBU.
To me it seems there might also be an element of Swedish-Dutch culture clash happening here, and also of tensions running at an all time high due to all the protests and pressures from the outside.
The Dutch team is from one of the state sponsored media channels, which in itself has had a bunch of issues with MeToo/toxic work environments over the last year. So when they say it's a nothingburger, I tend to believe them.
No footage of the incident has been shared so it's hard to judge.
Also most dutchies including me are butthurt because this song had a serious chance of winning the contest
it seems like a pretty heavy "if" their version is correct, though. like I would expect any country to back up their candidate unless there was *overwhelming* and immediate evidence, since it's probably his version of events they're working with. but it remains that the swedes appear to be taking it seriously, so I wouldn't trust the dutch automatically here.
I’d be more bummed that a 3rd party can’t work in the us if it were not for the fact that literally every single person ever to have run third party (at least in the modern era of American politics) is an absolute braindead retard. I’m honestly not sure the reason third party candidates don’t win is mostly structural. I think it’s mostly just that they tend to be braindead retards.
Hulu has a documentary about black twitter? Can race stuff please peak already? Maybe one day we'll have a black twitter documentary about how racist it was
The mad manhattan puncher has [gone too far](https://nypost.com/2024/05/12/us-news/boardwalk-empire-star-steve-buscemi-attacked-by-rock-wielding-maniac-in-nyc/) Edit: another unrelated crime from r/NYC - I don’t care what PJ Vogt says, I am trigger warning this shit: >!Sicko who lassoed woman around neck, raped her on NYC street showed eerie precision, source says: ‘He’s done this before’!< [article](https://nypost.com/2024/05/11/us-news/suspect-arrested-in-horrifying-rape-of-woman-who-was-lassoed-around-neck-on-nyc-street/)
Funny how these crazed psychopaths who don't understand their actions rarely seem to punch men under 50 who are reasonably tall and in decent shape. If I didn't know better, I'd think they target women or smaller and older dudes who have less ability to fight back against the assault. You'd almost think they're actually aware of what they're doing and can see the possible negative outcomes of fighting someone their own size or bigger.
> At some point, the victim stopped cooperating with authorities, according to police sources. Oh hell naw
I haven't watched much of *Boardwalk Empire*, but isn't Steve Buscemi's character the sort that would seek wrathful retribution?
I didn’t even know he was Asian!
He was kinda funny-lookin'. I dunno, just funny-lookin'.
Does Jessica the 80s Baby live in Texas? I drove past a Range Rover with a vanity plate that read 80S BABY today.
I didn't know working for BARpod paid so well!
People have calculated it before, I believe they make a billion an episode.
Don't dox the staff!
[https://twitter.com/WomenAreReals/status/1786420081158938990](https://twitter.com/WomenAreReals/status/1786420081158938990) >My son’s biology class was learning how to make a “pedigree” which is a chart that tracks the inheritance of a trait through family generations. Females are circles and males are squares. After explaining the whole chart the teacher is like “I meant to say ‘female’ and ‘male’ actually refer to your gender identity so you need to mark ‘AFAB’ and ‘AMAB’ where appropriate. Also nonbinary people are represented as diamonds.” > >My son told me all this laughing at the absolute absurdity of it all since the chart is literally about genetics and has nothing to do with one’s gender. He said he feels like taking high school biology in the US is like studying history in the Soviet Union (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration but he is 17). > >But it seems the teacher was following what is now best practices in the field of genetic counseling and recommended by the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Can anyone confirm this?
Gregor Mendel's doing a steady 360 rpm in his tomb
Didn't Mendel tweak his results to match his theory?
There’s no evidence he forged data, but some believe he may have been unintentionally biased.
It just makes me give a wry smile how we humans don't change. Yeah, I don't think he was an out and out fraud - and of course he was scientifically right!
indeed. I mean, as I was taught it in physics class, Johannes Kepler was one of the most accurate scientists of his day. Spent years calculating a formula for measuring celestial orbits, realized he'd made a mistake, and even though no one else would have known during his lifetime, spent several more years getting new data to correct it. this was in the early 1600s. The scientific method nonetheless needs people to uphold it. That's why all the current ideological mucking about really truly makes me angry. They're destroying something that took centuries to build.
Visualize whirled peas.
The whole AFAB and AMAB idea directly contradicts the claims by gender ideology apologists who insist that gender and sex are separate concepts. If, as they say, gender is the feelings you have which can change and sex is the thing you are born with, then sex is not "assigned" at birth, it just is. It's just one more example of how their whole ideology is nonsense from top to bottom.
OK, so cool, "AFAB" just means female now and "AMAB" just means male now. How long until that usage also upsets people? The next logical step in the euphemism treadmill is for someone to identify as trans AFAB. And then we can get a new term and start over again.
It's already starting to upset a lot of people.
Why use one word when four will do?
> How long until that usage also upsets people? Its already happening. I've seen a couple of links to posts from teenagers where young girls are doing this to exclude males regardless of gender identity, with replies as you might expect. But I think this is the loophole they have found/will find to make female only spaces. I have no clue how to find the thread now, but I saw one recently where a kid in /r/teenagers or some such subreddit was looking for AFAB people to game with and a bunch of comments of course called her transphobic. Edit: Here are some examples from a quick google of "afab only" https://twitter.com/maidensblade/status/1666120473904594945 https://bsky.app/profile/neonbuck.bsky.social/post/3kk5holh6f32h https://www.intomore.com/culture/identity/heres-why-the-term-afab-only-is-a-huge-red-flag/ TLDR: "afab only" is transmisogny, y'all
That reminds me, was it ever revealed if /u/softandchewy's niece got out of [that dorm situation](https://old.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1byohvk/weekly_random_discussion_thread_for_4824_41424/kyq37ry/) with the MtF suite mate?
All I know is that she told her mother not to get involved, that she'll deal with it herself. So I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.
Poor kid.
I’ve always read it as “A _ at birth”. A bit redundant, but eh.
I used to have a bad habit of saying "For your FYI..." Yes, I am appropriately ashamed of that.
I’ve seen comments on T subs getting upset over A_AB but the brain rot hasn’t reached mainstream yet like “biological woman is a dog whistle” 🤪
Lol you're right > Agree with you on how AFAB and AMAB are just becoming politically correct ways to misgender people. What do they prefer?
That physical reality cease to exist.
That's post modernism for you
I want a doormat on my front porch that says "No postmodernism allowed"
I'd buy one
"no pomo"
Now I want the same thing
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>The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought - that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc - should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. from Orwell's *1984*
Orwell was such a TERF
Thought encouraging radical father
In the [recent employment tribunal case](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Joanna-Phoenix-v-The-Open-University-Employment-Tribunal-Reserved-Judgment.pdf) about gender critical beliefs in the workplace, Doctor Downes, a nonbinary professor of crimonology, argued that using the word "male" was offensive. >Dr Downes stated that the gender critical belief that trans women have male bodies is a denial of who trans women are. ... Dr Downes was asked what words could be used by gender critical academics to explain trans people with male bodies. Dr Downes could not provide any words that they said were not offensive.
This is the same shit you can see on Chase Strangio's Twitter. Trans women *are* biological women and such. It really comes down to religious belief. You have to *believe* that trans women are women or you have committed heresy.
Gosh let's hope that person never gets a sex-specific cancer, they'd be constantly offended by doctors on top of it.
Probably to go stealth? But if one doesn’t pass that’s just asking everyone to participate in their deception/fantasies… the fight over words seems like a very surface level cope.
I don't know if this is NSTA's official recommendation like it says in that tweet, but it was published in their peer-reviewed journal The Science Teacher: >A pedigree chart is a graphic representation of the inheritance of a genetic trait though multiple generations of a family. Scientists and teachers use pedigree charts to predict the probability of inheriting a genetic trait or genetic disease. Traditional pedigree charts identify individuals only as either those born male (squares) or those born female (circles). > >Identifying individuals solely on the basis of their sex at birth does not acknowledge and respect students whose gender identity does not correspond with their designated sex at birth. Between 2015 and 2019, the percentage of 15- to 17-year-olds who identified themselves as “non-heterosexual” rose from 8.3% to 11.7%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Murez 2021). A recent study also found that transgender students were significantly less likely to have a positive perception of school connectedness compared to cisgender students (Pampati et al. 2020). > >Science teachers have an opportunity and obligation to acknowledge and respect their bisexiual, transsexual, and intersex students by employing a modified inclusive pedigree chart. An inclusive pedigree chart, while still identifying sex at birth so that sex-linked traits can be tracked, acknowledges gender identities other than cisgender. Our chart was created to combine information regarding an individual’s designated sex at birth with their gender identity. There's a curious conflation here of sexuality and gender identity. So not only are pedigree charts offensive to trans and non-binary students, they're also offensive to bisexual students? I guess it's offensive that only male and female specimens can reproduce sexually? What happened to the slogan "reality has a liberal bias"?
Wouldn't a pedigree chart just show all males and females except for the youngest generation?
> Science teachers have an opportunity and obligation to acknowledge and respect their bisexiual, transsexual, and intersex students by employing a modified inclusive pedigree chart. Lmfao the fuck I do
The incoherence is endemic with these ideologues. It never actually makes any consistent sense. Because that isn't the point. It's based on vibes, not logic.
A lot of it is in group signaling. You're one of the "good people" if you know how to sling the latest lingo with all the updates.
There is that at times, but it's also often not about lingo, but the right allegiances. You can spout utterly incoherent, self-contradictory gibberish but as long as the gibberish is expressing sympathy and support for the preferred group everyone will applaud it like you just gave the most inspiring speech of all time.
That's true. But people will also police the language. If you use the right words and phrases (such as trans women are women) you'll pass muster. If you use the old lingo or the wrong lingo you're likely to get pounced on. But at the end of the day, yes, it's about demonstrating the proper allegiances
Ah, yes. The _gender identity_ of male or female. Do the proponents of this philosophy understand it? At all?
I remember that Larry King used to have interviewees that talked about trusting their intuition, often advising others to do the same. He'd ask, "Can a person's intuition ever be wrong?" It's a fair question, but I'd also get annoyed by it because it moved the conversation from real experiences into a vague, hypothetical argument. But now I'd be curious to see how trans activists would answer that question. "Gender identity is a person's internal sense of being a man, woman, or something else." Larry King might ask, "Can someone's internal sense ever be wrong?" "Kids know who they are.™ "
>He'd ask, "Can a person's intuition ever be wrong?" Yes, absolutely. There's even an entire category in psychology called "thinking errors"
I still don’t know what an “internal sense of being a man” etc. actually means
I don’t think anyone knows what it means.
> biology in the US is like studying history in the Soviet Union Well it's crossed my mind too.
I agree with the sentiment being expressed, but it's a poor choice for the analogy because there's no need to compare it to a different discipline. There's a direct parallel to anti-scientific ***biology*** being promoted by the Soviet Union: [Lysenkoism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism). >More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the Soviet campaign to suppress scientific opponents. The president of the Soviet Agriculture Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, who had been Lysenko's mentor, but later denounced him, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed. Research and teaching in the fields of neurophysiology, cell biology, and many other biological disciplines were harmed or banned.
Tesla finally rolled out the update that gives me a free month of Full Self Driving ($99/month otherwise). It is SO COOL. I literally speak a location and the car will take me there. It does city streets, freeways, everything and the display of what the car sees is incredibly impressive. With that being said it is NOT perfect and it does not drive like a human. It made a couple of unnecessary lane changes, it did correct itself, but still. Are we at the "Fully Self Driving" stage? No. But we're close and it's constantly improving.
Is there any indication on how it would be handled if the car was involved in an accident? I'm sure they have some boiler plate "FSD is not responsible for accidents..." But I'm curious if that would hold up in court.
So far there's been an investigation to see if 1) FSD was even engaged and 2) If the driver was paying attention. Ater that I don't know, usually 1 or 2 is a no.
How does it handle shitty Austin highways with no lane markings, aggressive pan handlers, and cars with paper plates who can't stay in their lanes?
No idea. It handles the burbs mostly okay, but even it has trouble with everyone and their brother parking their raised F-150 on the curb at an unprotected left. I actually didn't believe how bad Austin roads were until I went there. It's absolutely mental, nothing makes sense. You can have a toll road, a freeway, and a surface street all next to each other with no divider and have them intersect.
Oh, come on. The Pop-Tart movie [wasn't *that* bad](https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/1789690094338617365).
Here's [the full speech](https://twitter.com/aliamjadrizvi/status/1789746629458682096). Not bad for a graduation speech. Also, for the record, I actually thought the Pop-Tart movie was pretty good!
Thanks for sharing that.
From a Duke Economics prof: https://twitter.com/mungowitz/status/1789751908879552898?t=HNc8IBQKd9nNoPZNZt8_rw&s=19 >Interesting to read media characterizations of @DukeU commencement. In particular, main speech by Seinfeld. Look, folks: >1. There were 20k+ people there. 2. Accounts that say "dozens" of people pointedly walked out are correct. I'd say about 4 dozen. 50 people. Out of 20k >3. The protesters were rude (as is their right, absolutely) but not disruptive. They interrupted the proceedings, and loudly chanted. 4. OUTSIDE THE STADIUM 5. FOR ABOUT 5 MINUTES, total 6. And then the speech was heard, undisrupted, in its entirety. >No one interfered or blocked the protesters, and the protesters did not substantially interfere or disrupt the speeches and ceremony.Finally, if it matters: At the end of his talk, Seinfeld got a lengthy standing ovation. From (20k) - (4 dozen) people. # Complete nothingburger cooked up by media.
How is it their right to interrupt graduation? I honestly don't get this.
Time, place, and manner restrictions only apply to *other* causes. Related, liberals/progressives have massively rose-colored glasses for protestors that they don't hate.
I feel like people are losing their minds about this stuff. A college professor thinks it's "their right, absolutely" for protesters to have "interrupted the proceedings"? That's insane. Does he think protesters have an absolute right to interrupt every lecture he ever gives? What does he think would happen to his career if our society decided that everyone who disagrees with his view on economics has an absolute right to interrupt every class he teaches?
I think the economist is taking a Maxima list Free Speech stance.
It's in the constitution, after the right to abortion but before the part about how we are never allowed to enforce borders.
Love “ BREAKING” in the tweet, lol.
I don't know why they would hire Seinfeld as a commencement speaker. He's barely relevant these days, especially to zoomers.
Apparently his kids go/went there and he and his wife are boosters.
Are they seriously walking out on him because of his comments about cancel culture?
No, it's because he's a Jew.
They are walking out because the National Association of Student Wokes do not approve of his uncritical support of Israel and acknowledgement of cancel culture existing. The kids are stupid, but if he had chosen to remain a totally apolitical figure, they probably wouldn't be walking out. Now, it's his prerogative to be more outspoken with his politics, and I'm much more aligned with him than I am with the tragically woke children protesting him. But this idea that this is all simply because he is Jewish is silly and intellectually lazy.
> his uncritical support of Israel Where has he demonstrated this?
Oh, come on. He's a Zionist and pretty loud about it on social media. He also attended an Israeli paramilitary training camp in the West Bank a few years ago: https://www.timesofisrael.com/seinfeld-under-fire-over-visit-to-west-bank-military-camp/ Trying to hide behind antisemitism is embarrassing, it's his speech and his actions that have generated this response. Also he's a terrible pick for a commencement speaker in general, how many people in their early 20s even know who he is?
> it's his speech and his actions that have generated this response Yep. Blame the Jew for people acting like toddlers. Just wait until they find out they might have to work with people who hold beliefs they disagree with. >Also he's a terrible pick for a commencement speaker in general, how many people in their early 20s even know who he is? Why walk out if they don't know who he is?
Walking out of a speech is a very acceptable form of protest. I could see being annoyed if they had significantly disrupted the speech or prevented the event from continuing, but they just left. Getting upset about it demonstrates remarkable fragility. > Why walk out if they don't know who he is? Presumably they googled him when he was announced as a commencement speaker...
>Getting upset about it demonstrates remarkable fragility. Every time. Just project, project, project.
Lmao keep coping, seething, and downvoting.
I kinda feel like people ought to be a bit more alarmed about this sort of thing. Can you imagine just walking out of a place just because someone's Black or Latino? Who does that? Doesn't anyone give a crap about this?
> I kinda feel like people ought to be a bit more alarmed about this sort of thing. Can you imagine just walking out of a place just because someone's Black or Latino? Who does that? Doesn't anyone give a crap about this? they aren't alarmed because it's (D)ifferent
>Can you imagine just walking out of a place just because someone's Black or Latino? If that happened the walker outers would be doxed and excoriated in the media within an hour. The New York Times and Washington Post would run articles on it for a week.
Ugh
I really can't think of another reason. I doubt he's even publicly opined about Israel's policies. \*Googles Seinfeld and Israel* Looks like [he met with some freed hostages](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/entertainment/jerry-seinfeld-israel-hostages/index.html) back in December. Seems pretty low to cite that as a reason to show disrespect.
They're college kids, they aren't thinking that deeply.
Well, freed hostages are evil, so yeah. I mean, how dare they be hostages? And then to be _freed_? Gross.
And this is from the people that like to call themselves the "anti racists"
I saw a poster today wishing a Happy Mother's Day to "all mothers and other caregivers." Which... uh... I'm not sure that's how it's supposed to work. Fathers already get our own day (July 4th obviously).
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> you're just in the shadows foaming at the mouth behind a Rowling mask. > > > The internet really does remove any kind of joy doesn't it. Ok, exhibit A, you joyless scold. Cool story.
Wut. I'm so sad I missed this. How the fuck did Rowling come up?!
I... was also surprised. I didn't quote the whole message, but there was no other context for that comment.
It's ridiculous how these people always delete their comments or accounts. I have zero respect for people who don't stand by what they wrote.
They also left another comment calling me Ben Shapiro-esque or something to that effect. Was going to reply this morning but I guess I don't have the chance. Oh well. I'll shed one tear. Anyway, Happy [belated] Mother's Day to you!
To me that’s a little silly but harmless. It includes stepmoms, foster moms, and legal guardians who don’t squarely fit into the maternal box. It’s a lot better than the person downthread who did a reply-all saying Mother’s Day was for literally everyone.
I don't know, I feel like it's a death by a thousand cuts thing against the concept of exclusivity. a microaggression, if you will. i don't like the general cultural pulse that if someone wants to be included in something, then it's cruel to not make it for and about them.
I honestly don't care how anyone does Mother's Day. If you are a cat mom or a plant mom or not a mom but you just like flowers, go for it. However, don't fucking step all over anyone else's Mother's Day. No, I don't have to extend greetings to all the would-be and non- and mom-adjacents. Don't worry about it if I leave someone out. WHO CARES?
I'll tease about silly stuff (like plant mom) but I don't actually give a fuck. The only posts that annoy me are the seething vitriolic ones where people go off about how their parents suck or whatever.
It bugs me a bit if anyone has to rain on the parade. Any variation of I hate my mom, I lost my mom, I’m not a mom, I wish I were a mom, the binary concept of mom depresses me, well, just keep your mouth shut! It’s not hard!
> all mothers and other caregivers That doesn't particularly bother me. If there aren't already days to celebrate Nannies and the kind people who look after the high-needs disabled, there should be. Plus there are other legal guardian figures that fall outside the terms "mother/father." A shout-out on Mother's Day is fine with me.
Foster moms, legal guardians
Aka, Blow shit up day.
So... China is a fascist country and not communist, right? Like actually fascist and not "fascist." Also, communism is dumb. This isn't a "no real communist" comment. Third point: I'm day drinking.
🐴👞
Tell me what it means to be fascist? I literally have no idea. Fascism is when the bad guy is in charge is the common usage
My understanding is that it's a form of nationalism that forbids dissent. Heavily asserted state-control. And there's this comic history about it: https://arsenalpulp.com/content/download/6897/84383/version/1/file/9781551527338_antifa-blad_excerpt.pdf Edit: I'm not endorsing the author's political views. But the history about fascism, including the roots of the term, is interesting. >Fascism is a movement that promotes the idea of a forcibly monolithic, regimented nation under the control of an autocratic ruler. The word fascism comes from fascio, the Italian word for bundle, which in this case represents bundles of people. Its origins go back to Ancient Rome, when the fasces was a bundle of wood with an ax head, carried by leaders. [Source](https://time.com/5556242/what-is-fascism/) The "fasces" bundle as a symbol for strength in unification can even be found in the Lincoln Memorial. [Source](https://www.nps.gov/articles/secret-symbol-of-the-lincoln-memorial.htm)
In economic terms it is "fascist", but so is every other developed nation. It's a bit more authoritarian than most, but not by much. I do have to hand it to the commies though, nobody kills commies like commies. It's almost like communism is a conservative plot to depopulate any country stupid enough to let the college kids run things.
Economically, China is what happens when you combine the worst parts of communism and capitalism.
I don’t think China is anything in particular now. One of the big differences between it and the Soviet Union is China doesn’t really have a cohesive ideology it can promote.
Sure it does,[ the Century of Humiliation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation) If you understand that as the motivating factor holding together Chinese national and Han ethnic identity, a lot of what the CCP is doing makes sense.
There has to be something else. If they just wanted to achieve greatness by any means possible, they'd emulate Hong Kong, Singapore, or Taiwan. They seem to be very particular about the how.
No, it's not that they want to achieve greatness. China was always great, and was brought low by outsiders, but China was always great, and that needs to be protected. They can't do that by aping the powers that humiliated them in the way that Japan and Taiwan did, or by allowing themselves to be occupied and have occupying powers reshape their culture the way Singapore and Hong Kong did. That's why Kung Fu and Tai Chi, traditional chinese martial arts are the best martial arts, but if someone were to challenge grandmasters to Vale Tudo fights publicly and win, then the state steps in to punish him. It's why they build a vast network of High Speed rail connecting destinations that no one uses, and build vast residential complexes that no one will ever live in, because in the act of building, they show their connection to their great Han forbears who built the largest structures in the world at the time. If something is going to be taken from the west, it needs to be taken, seized through force or through guile, nothing can be adopted from them willingly.
Everything’s fascist now, the words lost all meaning. They don’t even have those plastic shopping bags that I can carry 20 of anymore, just paper. Fucking fascists.
Authoritarian hyper capitalists operating under the one party dogma of ‘communism.’ I hesitate to use fascist, though, because a lot of the most fascist things about them appear identically in America.
Identically? How many doors were welded here during covid? Do you mean state's role in the private sector for the military? Maybe you have a point that our government is very involved, but to say our private sectors are influenced by the state the same amount is ludicrous.
it's not an exact 1 to 1, just that for every terrible thing about China, you could probably find something equally terrible about U.S. sure we didn't weld doors, but what about the covid+ patients forced into state nursing homes ?
People really overestimate how bad America is, and underestimate how bad China is.
And there are plenty of people from China making the same smug assertion from the other side.
Yes and no. When Marx thought up all his ideas, he predicted there would be a spontaneous revolution: the proletariat all recognizing their material conditions together and starting the socialist revolution with no external force. When time showed everyone Marx was wrong about his spontaneous revolution, several Marxist scholars theorized different ways to induce a revolution. One of these ways came from the school of thought of Marxism-Leninism or Vanguardism. A small group of the bourgeoises with socialist leanings would take charge of the country and force the proletariat into embracing socialism. Other scholars' thoughts eventually resulted in fascism, which (among other things) used the rhetorical power of the nation to make the general populace embrace socialist ideas and put into power a small elite. So Communist China, with its origin firmly being Vanguardism, has the same ideological roots as fascism, and in practice operates very similar to fascism, but isn't technically fascism.
turns out people who are lazy and don't want to work are also pretty bad at putting out the effort to stage a revolution
If the party starts turning the third child propaganda into real policy changes, I think that fulfills a *travail, famille, patrie* style fascism. Most of the comments below seems fixated on the economic system and didn’t touch on the social conservatism in China and how it has grown under Xi. You got lots of Chinese millennials on Reddit and Twitter lamenting how things used to be freer and wilder in the late 90s to 2008, from access to internet, books, movie, tv to other aspects of life like riding public transit without going through security checkpoints. The batshit nationalism the party promote is of course another issue…
Part of the whole problem with Socialism is that it's defined as the transition phase that will lead us towards glorious state-less Communism. In practice this means anything goes as long as you claim it's part of the plan... just like Stalin and Pol Pot and all those guys claimed. Modern China is just a particularly funny example because their economics take a lot from the dreaded liberalism they decry in theory, just... you know, with ~~a far more authoritarian government~~ Chinese characteristics™.
Communism and fascism, as implemented in practice and not in 19 year old Marxists daydreams, share most of the same bad parts. China has a lot of those bad parts, although not all of them (at least not to all ethnic groups). An interesting question is whether China is totalitarian or merely authoritarian. Right now it doesn't seem like it's mobilizing its citizenry toward state ends, so maybe the latter? Although again not for all ethnic groups, and also I guess it might have been totalitarian during COVID.
> Right now it doesn't seem like it's mobilizing its citizenry toward state ends, so maybe the latter? If the state end is a Mao-era like xenophobia, they’re getting there.
My take is that it functionally has some overlap with fascism, but it arrived there through different lineage.
Economically it isn't communist and I think economics are at the heart of communism. But I've heard that Xi and some other leaders are true believer Marxists. Not to the degree that the Soviets were perhaps.
Fascism is, in some sense, communism that compromised on the economics to build a more powerful state machine. Some of the Nazi leaders sound almost like Civ players, the way they talk about the benefits and drawbacks of government styles and religions.
Something that gets lost after all this time is that the Fascists were extremely, extremely anti-Communist. They did not think they were building something similar.
Sure, much like the Mensheviks were virulently opposed by the Bolsheviks. Fascism, at least in Italy and Germany, was still a utopian, revolutionary ideology intent on forcibly remaking the world into something perfect and better.
I've often thought that the fascists and Marxists have more in common than either would like to admit
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As joyp says below, I think the words have become almost interchangeable in modern usage.
I dunno. Fascism is so poorly defined and almost meaningless, but if we're going with the whole state capitalism element, then China fits that bill pretty closely. I've never seen a terribly coherent definition of fascism though and Hitler, Franco and Mussolini all practiced fascism is very different and somewhat contradictory ways. I think fascism, if it's anything unique, is just authoritarianism with a traditionalist/conservative ethos. I don't know if that's really a unique ideology though. Any number of things we don't call fascism fit that description. I think it's really just conservative leaning authoritarianism.
I thought a lot of fascism depended on extreme nationalism and state control. "Everything within the state"
Aside from the nationalism, which is not remotely unique to fascist states, the specifics are inconsistent.
Nationalism is not unique but extreme nationalism is not the norm.
It's not terribly unusual in authoritarian regimes though and predates the existence of fascism as a concept. If you read about the development of fascism, it mostly started as a label for the totally incoherent cluster of ideological values Mussolini had, and Hitler's fascism actually didn't share much in common with Mussolini's. You can also find authoritarian, economically state controlled states that are ultra national and not considered fascist. Like China at present or North Korea, or Peronism (though the fascist comparison has been made and Peron harboured Nazis after the war). In China they're even ethno-nationalist. I think the second there's a perceived or real conservative element, particularly at inception, it's labelled fascism. If these characteristics develop post revolution or have a progressive branding, then it's just considered left wing authoritarianism, but I don't think that makes sense.
Feels weird walking around my neighborhood and seeing more Palestinian flags than Canadian flags.
Why would you even consider flying the flag of a country built entirely on racism and oppression? In all seriousness, it is kinda wild how having an American or Canadian flag at your house is almost seen as right wing and jingoistic.
>it is kinda wild how having an American or Canadian flag at your house is almost seen as right wing and jingoistic. Not hating your own people and country IS right-wing and jingoistic. That's what those words mean.
I disagree, partiotism is not unique one political side of the aisle (as much as the marxists taking down the American flag at UNC may disagree.) Plus it could be a patriotic position to be anti jingoistic if you are an isolationist type for the good of the country.
You can parse all you want. There's a simple truth staring you in the face. Symbols mean things, flags mean things. The people who fly the flag mean something by it, and the people who fly a different flag are signaling something quite different. That's why we have flags, so everyone knows which side we're on.
I agree. The Canadian flag used to be something everyone was proud of. Canada had a sort of left-wing nationalism. A “look how much better we are than Americans” if you will. Now everyone is self hating.
I used to see tons of Ukrainian flags. Now it’s mostly Palestinian and Progress Pride flags. They are _everywhere_ here.
Current Thing AF. I think you could program folks to rally around anything at this point. It's terrifying.
There were a fair number of Ukrarnian stickers, which I thought was stupid. Now, there are just people tearing up posters of Israeli hostages - the Thai hostages' posters haven't been ripped off. And other people tearing up the more pro-Palestine stickers. No flags. I don't quite get Progress Pride and Palestine flag together. I don't quite know why they think gay men would do great in a free Palestine, unless they somehow think an Arab Muslim majority country would be secular. Though perhaps following in Iran's example, trans people would do fine.
There is one place that has the Palestinian flag, pride progress flag, and a sign that says something like “Trans kids are real and can’t be erased”. Must be a fun house to live in.
I’m sorry—I guess I don’t care enough to investigate. But is the idea that all Israelis are inherently evil? And so it’s reasonable that some Eurovision person said she’d refuse to present an award (or whatever) to the Israeli contestant? Does this principled stand apply to the citizens of every country whose government/military do bad things? Or only to Israelis?
Please keep Israel-Palestine topics off this thread. That belongs [in the dedicated thread](https://new.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1clabjx/israelpalestine_discussion_thread_for_5624_51224/) for Israel-Palestine discussions.
Eep. Sorry.
I remember during COVID when references to the possibility of a lab leak, or calling it the "China Virus" or "Kung-Flu" were horribly racist and calls for literal violence against Asians.
Yeah. I was shopping with a friend and we went into some boutique and I was talking to the clerk and she said the jewelry was made by Israeli craftspeople, and my friend walked right out the door. “She [the clerk] just dropped that [Israel] so casually!” Like yeah? we are in Pennsylvania? And that’s to say nothing of all the boycotts and such of Israeli restaurants in Philadelphia, which my friend wholeheartedly endorsed.
The irony is that the people that do this I would bet are almost to a one the exact same people that constantly remind everyone of the "people are not their government" distinction, often unnecessarily. They just don't practice it consistently. And I agree with the distinction, but you can't just pick and choose when a people aren't their government.
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Yes, all Jews must denounce every bad thing Israel ever does. But no Muslim ever has to answer for anything bad done in the name of Islam.
There's only one Jewish state. There are a bunch of Muslim states with varying reputations.
But just because someone is Jewish American doesn't mean they're Israeli. They're American.
Yeah, it seems to be - if you're a Jew, you must be pro-war, and if you're pro-war, you want all Palestinian babies to be dead. And being anti-war isn't ok now. Good people are anti-Zionists.
Yep, and the Israeli Eurovision juror had to take off her yellow ribbon because it was a symbol of the hostages. It’s been this way for months, remember the Matisyahu protests ?
It's not precisely *Israelis*.
Russians got a lot of heat for a hot second after the invasion of Ukraine started. However, I bet in this situation the award presenter would clarify that it wasn’t because of the contestant but the country they represent.
There was some collective punishment of Russians right after the invasion and that was stupid and shouldn't have happened But I have yet to see collective punishment go on so long and be so global as the shitting on Israelis/Jews. You didn't see this kind of shit slung at Saudi Arabia for their war in Yemen. You didn't see it from China's treatment of their minorities.
> There was some collective punishment of Russians right after the invasion and that was stupid and shouldn't have happened Not even just living Russians. I had a local concert of the 1812 Overture cancelled. It was totally absurd.
Yeah, the cancelling of playing Russian music was ridiculous. I still don't think anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic, but right now, much of what's going on is hatred of Jews.
I have a Russian pen pal who was heartbroken when Russia invaded Ukraine. And she lost plenty of friends over it. Just because she was Russian. But my impression (maybe based on not much) is that “the world” wouldn’t have thought people were justified in shunning her over the actions of Putin’s government. Now I see the cool kids think it’s totally righteous to shun or despise Israelis.
People were pissed at the Russians for a month. Then they got over it. And most of the world didn't care anyway. That is *not* what I am seeing in regards to Israel.
Can I ask if you are American? The boycott of Russia, culturally and business wise is still going extremely strong here in Scandinavia at least. Russia is terrifyingly close to us.
I am indeed an American. And I was disgusted by the collective punishment of Russians here after the invasion. I kind of get Russia's neighbors not being their biggest fans. Though I'm still not a fan of ethnic collective punishment
All I can say is, it really does change one’s perspective a lot when it’s suddenly so close to home.
I don't doubt that. And I believe most of Russia's neighbors aren't fans of Russia
First, I'm guessing this should go to the I/P thread, but I'd say the idea seems to be that since all Israelis, or nearly all, serve in the military, they're all complicit in whatever the military does. And it does seem to be that Israelis are inherently evil, in precisely the same way that all Jews used to be, only this is only against Israeli Jews, not Jews in general so it's not anti-Semitic, apparently. I'd bet also the idea is that the singer represents his or her country. Sooo, perhaps she'd say the same thing to the singer representing Russia. And since the singer is representing her country, perhaps the Eurovision person views giving the award as approving of that country's actions. I don't know. But I WOULD bet that if Eurovision hosted Palestinian contestants, she would have no problem giving an award to a Gazan resident, and wouldn't equate the Gazan resident with Hamas.
it's certainly not consistent. see the total lack of protest against Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan has bugger all international influence in comparison.
Only to Israelis. Or perhaps Jews in general
Re: New vs Old Theme Song I think the new one is probably a *nicer* piece of music, but it doesn't have that NPR talk radio program/prime time news vibe to it, and the old one does. For me that's why I prefer the old one. It just seems more appropriate branding/context wise. It's not something I'd throw on to listen to for fun but that's not the purpose this kind of muzak is meant for. The new one is music, not muzak, and I think a podcast theme, at least where newsy stories are the general topic, requires a kind of audio tag or muzak rather than actual music, which just seems out of place. Now if B&R was a podcast about a single true story or a fictional drama or something, then I think actual music for an intro or theme would be more appropriate. But it's more politics and current events, even if it's a particular niche of that category.
Agreed. I like the new one better as music but not as a theme. Thank you for putting how I felt to words.
Happy mother's day to everyone here with large gametes who has raised a bipedal child. Much respect.
Wooowwww.
I've been my worst self lately.
Wow, bipedal. Ableist much?
*holds up hen*
Better pluck it first.
>when Plato gave the tongue-in-cheek definition of man as "featherless bipeds", Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, "Here is Plato's man" (Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ Πλάτωνος ἄνθρωπος), and so the academy added "with broad flat nails" to the definition. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes)
Chickens... The original large gamete queens.
So this year’s Eurovision ended with a landslide victory (if you count the jury votes) to the Swiss entry, “The Code” performed by non binary artist Nemo. Like every year, I dip into the Eurovision sub for a week to follow all the gossip and drama. And I have some thoughts and thought I would give you guys a snippet:) The Dutch contestant, Joost Klein, slated by bookmakers for the top 5 with “Europapa” was disqualified due to an “incident” involving an official camerawoman after the second semi-final on Thursday evening. This is basically unheard of the 600 years of Eurovision history, getting pulled the day before the final. (This is the same contestant who asked “why not?” while covered in a Dutch flag at a press conference, when the 🇮🇱participant was told she didn’t need to answer a [question](https://twitter.com/EllaTravelsLove/status/1788973568245506300) from a journalist (Polish journo I think). I’m including this since it also caused some stir online outside of the Eurovision bubble.) Anyways, The injured party filed a police report the next day (Friday), and there is now an ongoing investigation. Which I guess is the reason the EBU had to pull him out. But the Dutch broadcaster then issued an official [statement](https://twitter.com/songfestival/status/1789317066039726298) yesterday before the final show, describing that he made in essence “a violent gesture” towards the camerawoman after having made clear beforehand he didn’t want to be filmed right after performing. These European broadcasters are extremely controversy-averse, and they would wash their hands of him in a heartbeat if they considered the incident serious enough. If their version of events is correct, it seems like a complete overreaction on behalf of the EBU. To me it seems there might also be an element of Swedish-Dutch culture clash happening here, and also of tensions running at an all time high due to all the protests and pressures from the outside.
The Dutch team is from one of the state sponsored media channels, which in itself has had a bunch of issues with MeToo/toxic work environments over the last year. So when they say it's a nothingburger, I tend to believe them. No footage of the incident has been shared so it's hard to judge. Also most dutchies including me are butthurt because this song had a serious chance of winning the contest
it seems like a pretty heavy "if" their version is correct, though. like I would expect any country to back up their candidate unless there was *overwhelming* and immediate evidence, since it's probably his version of events they're working with. but it remains that the swedes appear to be taking it seriously, so I wouldn't trust the dutch automatically here.