Objection
@Objection@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Why does it seem like Americans have become so hateful and destructive in the past years? 1 week ago:
Every part of our society is dysfunctional and declining, and that’s self-perpetuating. If you throw a rock, you’ll hit a reason why the US is like this. We are pretty FUBAR.
It’s pretty much always been this way, like if you look at opinions and rhetoric post-9/11, the overwhelming majority of people supported Bush and it was common to talk about nuking random countries in the Middle East. Back then we were a bit less mask off in that Bush wasn’t as blunt and explicit about things as Trump is, but the bodies were just as dead. Trump realized that the facade of politeness had become vestigal and didn’t actually matter. As for American liberals, the thing to understand is that they only compare themselves to Republicans and so as long as they are 5% more proper and 5% kinder, 5% more intellectual, etc, they see themselves as having all of those qualities, but from the outside, to someone who has reference points outside of American politics, the differences often seem pretty marginal. So for example, “I can excuse indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, but I draw the line at torture” and within the context of American politics that’s reasonable and even left-leaning but in a broader context, it’s like, "You can excuse what?"
- Comment on what was the last game you played in 2024? 2 weeks ago:
I brought in the new year playing Fire Emblem: Awakening (which I’ve been obsessed with after finally getting it working on an emulator). I’d been struggling with lunatic mode but I figured out I can just feed Robin because of the XP boost and then use her to carry the team. Changed her to Pegasus Knight and then Dark Flier and now I can just swoop in and one-shot any enemy and she’s over-levelled enough that the enemies won’t prioritize her, and if they do, she dodges everything and has enough HP to survive a bow to the face.
The early levels were very challenging and I had to heavily abuse save states but once I got rolling it’s been a lot smoother. The two cavaliers you start with literally can’t survive a single hit starting out. Since everyone’s so vulnerable, you just have to get one unit good asap to avoid relying on your Jagen.
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
What did I say that’s whataboutism? You claimed that Cuba was authoritarian and the US is free, therefore it’s perfectly valid for me to compare the two against each other. It would only not be valid if you had placed them both in the same category.
Freedom House is literally funded by the US State department lmao. Nice objective and unbiased source you’ve got there!
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
Mhm. I wonder, which of these objective metrics led you to list the US as more free than Cuba.
Cuba’s family code is one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in the world concerning LGBT rights and gender equality, meanwhile, there are parts of the US where you can get arrested for using the bathroom. The US performs mass surveillance on all citizens and has the most sophisticated spy network in the world, it has used extrajudicial, indefinite detention without trial (in addition to having the highest incarceration rate in the world), along with torture (ironically, on illegally occupied Cuban soil). The US has kangaroo courts where children as young as six have to represent themselves in court with no right to an attorney, against threat of deportation. The police are equipped with military-grade equipment designed to fight insurgents, with the police budgets of individual cities exceeding that of the militaries of many countries: Cuba’s military spending is several times less than the police budget of Phoenix, AZ.
Does any of that factor into your analysis?
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
Non sequitor. Where did I say anything was black and white?
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
It’s not saying that both sides are bad? You sure about that?
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
Right, and what I’m saying is that by that logic, Trump supporting the Palestinian genocide doesn’t justify the democrats supporting the Palestinian genocide - they should not be considered immune to criticism either, and when people criticize them, they should not be assumed to be supporting the other side.
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
I couldn’t ask for clearer evidence than not accepting Saudi Arabia as authoritarian to demonstrate that “free vs authoritarian” are just propaganda terms and that how “free” a country allegedly is is really just a function of how aligned it is with the US.
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
Correct, whether it’s about countries or parties.
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
No u.
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
if you’re a global power, you’ve got a body count in the millions.
Very true. But is this an inherent trait of the world, or is there some path forward that would change or mitigate this fact?
- Comment on Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay 5 weeks ago:
Wait, are you saying “both sides bad?” “Both sides are the same?” Am I hearing this right?
Look, if either Xi Jinping or Donald Trump is going to emerge as leader of a global hegemon, then any and all criticism of Xi Jinping is the exact same as being a Trump supporter. When are we going to do something about all these secret Trump supporters pretending to be leftists?
At least, that’s what I’d say if I accepted the absurd logic of lesser evilism the liberals were constantly berating everyone with.
- Comment on Indian start-up Yes Madam fires employees who indicated being stressed in the survey 5 weeks ago:
No one was firebombed at YesMadam!
To my Lemmy family and community,
I sincerely apologize for any distress caused by my recent social media post calling for the firebombing of YesMadam’s corporate headquarters. Let me be clear: I would never take such an inhuman step. I deeply respect the value of all human life.
My social media post was a planned effort to highlight the serious issue of firebombing corporate headquarters. And to those who shared angry comments of voiced strong opinions, I say thank you. When people speak up, it shows they care.
Were YesMadam’s corporate headquarters really firebombed? Absolutely not.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 5 weeks ago:
When we say landlords are bad, it’s not really about the individual people so much as it’s about the system as a whole. Ideally, the human right to housing should be guaranteed for everyone, along with the right to be cared for in retirement. How many elderly people don’t own their own homes, and have rent to pay as an additional expense making it harder for them to retire? Sure, landlordism can provide a source of income for people who can’t work, but for every case of that, there’s another case of someone who can’t work who doesn’t have the privilege of owning a home, such that the existing system makes them even more desperate. So logically, it doesn’t really make sense as a justification.
Cases like this should be considered when we’re looking at how best to implement our ideals, but not for determining our ideals in the first place. The just thing is that everyone should have a secure place to live. That’s the ideal. In implementing that ideal, we should consider that houses currently are used as a form of investment and many people simply use them that way without a second thought, because of social norms. If we simply seized and redistributed everyone’s properties tomorrow, some people like your aunt would be disproportionately affected, compared to if they had invested in stocks that can be just as unethical. It would probably still be better for most people than doing nothing, but we ought to craft policy in such a way that we’re not trolley probleming it (except regarding the people at the very top, for whom it’s unavoidable), but rather such that it provides benefits while harming as few people as possible.
When society is organized justly and the wealth of the people on the top is redistributed, there will be enough to go around that everyone ought to be able to benefit from it. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a problem to compensate small landlords for their properties and ensure that they aren’t harmed by any changes in policy.
- Comment on Do you want the murderer of the UnitHealthcare CEO prosecuted? 1 month ago:
No one? What if your profession is being a guard at Auschwitz? Is it “disgusting” to say that the SS deservered to die based on their profession?
- Comment on Oh... is that what your corporate security detail is for? Passive resistance? 1 month ago:
MFers will be like, “I’m a pacifist, it’s easy, if I ever see a dangerous situation, I just move to safety and call the cops,” that’s not pacifism, you’re just bragging about being privileged enough to have others do violence on your behalf.
- Comment on You don't need to answer this 1 month ago:
Is it murder to shoot someone who’s in the process of murdering people in order to stop them from committing murder?
- Comment on You don't need to answer this 1 month ago:
Those poor rich people have to deal with so much hatred and discrimination😢
That’s why I’m personally volunteering to take their money so they can no longer be rich and subject to such hate. I may be hated instead, but I’m willing to bear that cross and take up the Rich Man’s Burden. Some may call me a hero, but I ask for nothing in return, no praise, no monuments in my honor. The only thing I ask for is to take over the burden of owning a mountain of unearned wealth.
- Comment on You don't need to answer this 1 month ago:
A person? No, it was lots of people who were murdered. Fortunately, they got the guy who was doing it.
- Comment on You don't need to answer this 1 month ago:
- Comment on ugh i wish 1 month ago:
There’s sweetened and unsweetened ones so that might be it but who knows.
- Comment on ugh i wish 1 month ago:
You should give oat milk a try (or soy/almond, but oat tastes the best imo)
- Comment on What is the central tenet(s) of political anarchism? What makes a political philosophy anarchism vs something else? 1 month ago:
I’m not an anarchist but I’d like to elaborate on your question.
In a competitive economy (big disclaimer), especially in the case of plumbing which has a low barrier to entry, you and the plumber don’t have a significant power differential. You need a plumber, but you don’t need that specific plumber, and the plumber needs customers but they don’t need you specifically. If a bunch of plumbers got together and said they won’t work for you, it wouldn’t be too hard for someone to learn the trade and break the monopoly, in the same way, you could try to boycott the plumber, but they could just find other customers.
But that’s in the theoretical case of like, the free market actually working. There are lots of ways in which it can go wrong. If the barriers to entry are higher, then it’s easier to form a monopoly, and in some industries that barrier is naturally higher (say, microchip production), and it’s also possible to raise the barrier of entry if an entity gets powerful enough to influence policy - for example, if you had to obtain an expensive license to be allowed to practice plumbing. So it’s really two questions: is trade inherently explotative, and is trade potentially exploitative?
Boycotts are sometimes idolized as a way to prevent bad behavior without the involvement of the state. But this is problematic for two reasons. The first being that boycotts are difficult to organize and only sometimes effective. The second is that to the extent that they are effective, they’re not always used to do good things. To use an example, we can look at the Jim Crow South. If I own a business in a town full of racists, and I try to run my business in a non-racist way, then I’m alienating a bunch of my racist customers and racist businesses may refuse to serve or do business with me, until I go bankrupt or am forced out of town. This problem was only solved through federal intervention through the Civil Rights Act.
Under those circumstances, it’s difficult for me to imagine how anarchism could work. As a trans person from the southern US, decentralization and giving power back to local communities sounds nice on paper, but like, have you seen these communities? Have you looked at what they’ve done historically when federal authority was looser? Who is poised to take power in those regions in the event of the abolition of the federal government?
That doesn’t mean that anarchism is fundamentally unworkable everywhere, though. It just means that you have to evaluate the actually existing material and social conditions and figure out what can be done where based on that.
- Comment on What are some video game quotes that is stuck in your head? 1 month ago:
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine. Your kind cling to your flesh, as though it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal. Even in death I serve the Omnissiah.
- Comment on flouride 1 month ago:
Oh, if that “seems pretty clear cut to you,” then I’m about to blow your fucking mind
STOP EATING RICE!
NAME YOUR DAUGHTER SARAH, IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE THE AMAZON! AND WHATEVER YOU DO…
…DO NOT NAME THEM TRISTEN
If we shut down flights to Antarctica, inflation would’ve been solved yesterday.
- Comment on Am I the only one who does this? 2 months ago:
“Why should I break my head about the outside world? Let the outside world break it’s own head!”
“He’s right. As the good book says, if you spit in the air, it lands in your face.”
“Nonsense! You can’t close your eyes to what’s happening in the world.”
“…He’s right.”
“He’s right, and he’s right, they can’t both be right.”
- Comment on Is this what every election is like? 2 months ago:
Yeah pretty much. 2016 was crazier than this one for sure. This one didn’t have a competitive primary on either side, and it was predicted as a toss-up whereas in 2016 every poll and media outlet was saying it was impossible for Trump to win, and there was no precedent to predict what would happen when he was in office. This is like, after people have had eight years to come to terms with Trump being a thing in whatever form that looks like. The general trend though is that things are getting crazier, and that trend is likely to continue.
- Comment on How is it that "protecting basic democracy and the rule of law, and not crowning a criminal dictator" wasn't even on the chart?! 2 months ago:
If that’s why Kamala lost, then explain why Tammy Baldwin is winning Wisconsin and Elissa Slotkin is winning in Michigan.
- Comment on Honey 2 months ago:
Of course, it has nothing to do with corporate money or higher prices for consumers, it’s purely the people not participating in the system of abuse who are the problem. Very logical and definitely not just a defense mechanism.
- Comment on Honey 2 months ago:
Oops, you forgot to answer my question again.
Cut the crap. It’s plain as day what’s happening here - you want to discredit the people who are actually doing things in order to make yourself feel better about not doing anything. It’s just a defense mechanism, and the person you’re really trying to fool us yourself.
