Objection

@Objection@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Remember, kids! Unregulated capitalism is not your friend!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  This quote is from a later period, but it reminded me of it:

  When he was a serf, they said to him, “Let me find you in this field: I will hang you if I find you in anyone else’s field.” But now he is a tramp they say to him, “You shall be jailed if I find you in anyone else’s field: but I will not give you a field.” They say, “You shall be punished if you are caught sleeping outside your shed: but there is no shed.” If you say that modern magistracies could never say such mad contradictions, I answer with entire certainty that they do say them. A little while ago two tramps were summoned before a magistrate, charged with sleeping in the open air when they had nowhere else to sleep. But this is not the full fun of the incident. The real fun is that each of them eagerly produced about twopence, to prove that they could have got a bed, but deliberately didn’t. To which the policeman replied that twopence would not have got them a bed: that they could not possibly have got a bed: and therefore (argued that thoughtful officer) they ought to be punished for not getting one. The intelligent magistrate was much struck with the argument: and proceeded to imprison these two men for not doing a thing they could not do. But he was careful to explain that if they had sinned needlessly and in wanton lawlessness, they would have left the court without a stain on their characters; but as they could not avoid it, they were very much to blame.

  The desperate man to-day can do nothing. For you cannot agree with a maniac who sits on the bench with the straws sticking out of his hair and says, “Procure threepence from nowhere and I will give you leave to do without it.”

  (GK Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨100% people who drink water die⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I heard that some people drink so much of that crap that literally more than 50% of their body is made up of water. I don’t even know how it’s possible to still be alive at that point, I mean, JFC it’s like you’re not even a solid at that point, you’re just gonna dissolve into a puddle. Like, get help.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Speak American⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  there is a perfectly good flag for England that people refuse to use

  Well yeah, but these days, you say you’re English, you’ll get arrested and thrown in jail

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨the young always think they have all the right answers but THIS eventually happens⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My father once yelled at me because he tried to to tell me a story about a friar in the 1600’s who had the power of flight and I assumed it was a joke. It was not a joke.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We gonna fight⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The right has their fair share of infighting. They may all want heirarchy, but they disagree on who should be on top. They can all agree on scapegoating an outgroup, but disagree on which people fall into that outgroup. Like, the ultimate endgame of fascism is for the last fascist to kill the second to last fascist for not being white enough.

  They appear to be united because most of us don’t go into their spaces and lurk, because, I mean, ew. If a Trump supporter came to Lemmy, they’d find people quite united against them, and if one of us went on Truth Social, we’d find them quite united against us, but that doesn’t mean they actually get along internally.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We gonna fight⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I have seen people waxing poetic about Imperial Japan

  What? Who? Where? That’s an absolutely wild take.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it true that femboys are "fetishized" by right-wingers or something like that? Or is my friend(who told me this) tripping balls?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  All you did was barf on your keyboard, it’s not worth a response.

  Please fuck off back to Reddit or 4chan or wherever you came from. We don’t want your kind here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it true that femboys are "fetishized" by right-wingers or something like that? Or is my friend(who told me this) tripping balls?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Blah blah blah. The Nazis started by coming after trans people too, gay people wound up in camps all the same. Divide and conquer, you’re not as clever with this BS as you think.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New to lemmy. Is there a version of /r/changemyview?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It may have originated with trans people getting kicked out, shopping for cheap furniture, and then being pleasantly surprised to find a big soft friend at the furniture store - out of nowhere something fun and comforting appears just as they begin a new life.

  However, that’s speculation. It just sort of became a meme.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it true that femboys are "fetishized" by right-wingers or something like that? Or is my friend(who told me this) tripping balls?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “trans rights” and gay rights don’t mix very well.

  Classic right wing “divide and conquer” tactics, try to drive a wedge between trans and gay people, pick off the trans people first, then come for the gays next. This nonsense is exactly why the LGBT acronym was made in the first place, because we (the vast majority of us, anyway) stand together in solidarity and reject this idiotic nonsense.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it true that femboys are "fetishized" by right-wingers or something like that? Or is my friend(who told me this) tripping balls?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, it’s true in some cases.

  It’s not really that surprising. Just as there are straight men who are misogynist there are people who are attracted to femboys, trans people, and/or other gender nonconforming people who hold prejudices against the same group. It’s massively oversimplifying human psychology to think it just comes down to a single linear axis of like/dislike. For some people, it might be that simple, but it’s not always the case.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tattoos⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We should try giving the measles virus a MS-13 tattoo.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The pipeline⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  didn’t immediately solve all problems

  I love how liberals constantly downplay shit like this. If you’re upset about your friends and family being shoveled into a pointless meat grinder and you’re experiencing mass death and oppression, then you’re just upset that “democracy didn’t immediately solve all problems.” In the same way that opposition to genocide is frequently framed as, “throwing a fit because you don’t get your way,” and such.

  It’s literally just the Joker speech from The Dark Knight, as long as there’s a plan, it’s fine, even if the plan is horrible, the only thing that matters is that the norms are respected and the proper procedure is followed. You and everyone you care about can be sent to concentration camps, just so long as the decision is made by a legislative body following proper procedure. Systemic violence, like dragging people from their homes to die in a trench en masse, is perfectly acceptable, just so long as it isn’t disruptive, just so long as everything is going according to plan. The only problem y’all have with fascism is that it’s so rude and blunt, if it persued the same goals respectfully you’d be completely fine with it.

  Yes, it did benefit the people immensely to get out of the war. Aside from the horrors of WWI, with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that if they hadn’t dropped out and focused on rebuilding and industrial development at that point, there’s a fair chance that they lose to the Nazis in WWII and we’d all be speaking German right now. Besides, in the chaos of this period the so-called “democracy” wasn’t some kind of established, functional system, we’re talking about a provensional government, and one that completely failed to address ongoing crises (which is kinda the point of having a provisional government). Under the conditions of the time, sensible people radicalize, and then they force things to change and get rid of those conditions, and then people 100 years later to whom the conditions are utterly foreign waggle their fingers about it, but they don’t care because they’re no longer dying in a ditch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A bit of salt makes it taste more savory⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re correct, but in the end those same tankies are also the ones that want a fascist state because they’re basically a capitalist state on the brink of collapse – a good ground for revolution that tankies wish for.

  This is the dumbest shit ever and not what we believe. Y’all don’t ever listen to the things we actually say, you just make shit up and repeat it to each other until it becomes accepted as obviously true, regardless of any basis in reality.

  A fascist state is not “good ground for revolution.” There have been many far-right states that have successfully hunted down and exterminated the left and survived for quite a long while. And the conditions in the US are such that in an armed conflict the right would obviously have a major advantage. Should conditions decline, it’s far more likely that we’d have a right-wing revolution than a left-wing one.

  The problem is that conditions are declining under both Republicans and Democrats. Neither party offers any possibility of actually halting or reversing the decline, or averting any of the many, many crises, some of which are looming and some of which are actively happening. Liberals are fully content to accept this state of affairs for some reason - they just want a more gradual decline which will still lead to crises, the far-right gaining strength and power, and the complete extermination of the left and vulnerable populations. As long as that gets pushed back 5 or 10 years, perfectly acceptable to them, and worth sacrificing any attempts to actually fix the problems - which is what us “tankies” would prefer to happen.

  If I were an “accelerationist,” looking to bring about a fascist state on the bizarre logic that it would somehow be “good ground” for a left-wing revolution, then why would I have a problem with either side? Conditions will continue to decline regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is in charge. What, am I just so impatient that I couldn’t wait a few more years? If that’s what I believed, I’d just disengage from politics and not give a shit what happens, confident in the fact that the inevitable decline will bring about socialism, somehow. Doesn’t really seem worth the effort.

  Unfortunately, this “accelerationist” concept doesn’t actually track with history. People have lived - and do, currently live in worse conditions than we have in the US, often for generations. Slavery persisted for centuries, and yes there were slave revolts but they were often disorganized and put down. This idea that bad conditions automatically create successful left-wing revolutions makes no sense to anyone who’s actually capable of thinking beyond a meme level.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A bit of salt makes it taste more savory⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “Not just fascists, but also those who oppose fascism and are trying to build an alternative to fascism” got it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's a fun new game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  :::spoiler spoiler

  Try adding a decimal after the 3

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's a fun new game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  3141 5926 5358 9793; 2/38; 462

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨你好!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This is a fair point. We are quite far along on the brain drain already. I suppose I should take the fact that you think I’m too knowledgeable to possibly be an American as a complement. There are, however, still some intellectuals with a basic knowledge of other countries’ history here, the stereotype that were’re all a bunch of backwards hicks and self-centered chauvanists is only mostly correct.

  I used the phrase “century of humiliation” intentionally to draw a comparison between the two. If you talk to Chinese people (for example on RedNote) a lot of them will tell you that they care about science and advancement, not just for it’s own sake, but because they have the cultural memory of what happened when they didn’t. The century of humiliation is a big reason why the Chinese have got that dog in 'em when it comes to science, while Americans love toying around with antivax shit and similar anti-science ideas because we’re so used to being on top and none of our actions having consequences.

  China had the same kind of backwards traditionalists back in the Qing that we have today, and everyone say that traditional approach get steamrolled by guns and battleships. But we never had that experience. So why not fuck around with forcing Creationism into science textbooks? “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Just as the Qing dynasty was committed to doing things their way and refusing to adapt to changing conditions or learning from other countries, you see similar tendencies in the US today. As your disbelief attests, people don’t look to other countries to understand why they do what they do or to take any lessons from their history. And those who do are regarded as traitors or spies, just like those in the Qing dynasty who advocated for studying and adopting Western science were. Really, there are a lot of parallels between the two, imo.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨你好!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The American brain drain is gonna suck for people living here but is also very justified and deserved at this point.

  The Americans have gotten so complacent about being on top of the world that lots of people don’t think there are any real consequences to anything and just wanna fuck around. We used to be at the forefront of research but now nobody with half a brain would want to come here. We’re heading full speed into a century of humiliation and people are just gonna keep doubling down on ignorance and bigotry as things get worse

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨From a purely political perspective, if you oppose the US tariffs as a US resident, should you buy or avoid buying products subject to tariffs?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  If you have an option that doesn’t involve giving money to the US government you should probably do that. You’re not going to own them by giving them cash.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Secession is a really interesting topic to examine because it’s virtually impossible for anyone to have a “principled” stance on it.

  The one good point I ever heard from an anarcho-capitalist was in regards to the prospect of Catalan secession some years back. Catalonia held a referendum on secession which was not recognized by Spain and was boycotted by those who opposed it. One of the reasons they wanted to leave was that they felt the region was getting a raw deal, giving more tax revenue to the central government than they got in return.

  Well, then, there was talk about if that happened, the city of Barcelona might seceed from Catalonia! It had the same complaint that it produced more revenue that went to the rest of the region, and many people there weren’t necessarily interested in what Catalonia was trying to do.

  If we say that Catalonia should be able to seceed from Spain, then why shouldn’t Barcelona be able to seceed from Catalonia? And if Barcelona can seceed, then can a district in Barcelona seceed from the city? And can we not follow this logic all the way down to a single individual seceeding from a district? And if we accept that, then doesn’t that imply that anarcho-capitalism, with its concept of a “minority of one,” is the correct position?

  Well, it’s not. Why is it not? Because there are all sorts of reasons why it’s unworkable and incoherent, and most critically, it cannot address collective action problems. These are practical considerations, which gives us a hint at what our operating logic ought to be. Very simply, secession should be supported when it’s good and opposed when it’s bad. Having bigger or smaller polities is neither good nor bad inherently, but rather we must look at things on a case-by-case basis and evaluate what the likely effects are. There simply isn’t a standard rule that you can apply to all cases without looking at what the secessionists hope to accomplish and how realistic it is. The correct position is to be brazenly “hypocritical,” because you shouldn’t operate on the principle that secession is either inherently good or bad. Instead, we need to evaluate the specific material conditions to determine what’s best in a specific situation.

  Of course, in most cases, states don’t want to give up territory without good reason, and unless you have some means of getting the state to do what you want and leave you alone (including but not limited to guns), then it’s up to their assessment of what’s best whether to allow it or not. You can make the argument that the US should dissolve and balkanize and maybe you’re right, but if the government says no, then where does that leave you?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Fairly common knowledge. Even portrayed in movies like Kuru and Seven Years in Tibet.

  Oh, well if it’s portrayed in movies it must be true.

  Here is a link to a PDF

  That document lists 100 atrocities, which of them are you referencing with “forcing children to murder their parents?”

  It is worth noting that even these claims are impossible to verify.

  Mhm.

  But the simple fact remains that May Zedong openly opposed religion and claimed that his annexation of Tibet was a “liberation” from what he called “religious oppression.”

  Yes, because Tibet was subject to religious oppression. They had an aristocratic system of serfdom with extreme poverty (while the religious rulers lived in luxury), and an average life expectancy in the 30s. It was a cruel, oppressive theocracy. After the aristocrats and theocrats were thrown out, the Tibetan people experienced the same massive increases in life expectancy and improvements in material conditions that the rest of China experienced during this period, including doubling of life expectancy.

  Tibet emerged along with countless other warlord states following the collapse of the Qing, it was always considered part of China by the KMT and it was never recognized as an independent state by the international community (iirc, it was only ever recognized by like Mongolia). The communists and nationalists fought side-by-side against most of these warlord states with a common understanding that the nation needed to be unified, however, Tibet wasn’t a priority because of it’s remoteness. Had the KMT won they’d have brought it back into the fold eventually too, as evidenced by the fact that Taiwan still maintains a territorial claim over all of Tibet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, what about Buddhist sects that discriminate based on sex?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s really ambiguous what they’re talking about or what they even mean. Here are two things that could both be described as, “Forcing Tibetan children to kill their parents.”

  • A Tibetan soldier volunteers to join a war, and through sheer chance, they learn that their parents are fighting on the other side of the battlefield. They ask to leave the front and their CO refuses - technically, they’ve been forced to kill their parents.

  • A communist agent abducts a family in the dead of night and hands the child a gun while putting a knife to their sister’s throat and telling them if they don’t kill their parents, they’ll be killed, along with their siblings. This happens systematically across Tibet, and only Tibet.

  They could be referencing the Cultural Revolution. A lot of shit happened during this period, including what you described. But to my knowledge, the struggle sessions and such were more the actions of the Red Guards, who were student led paramilitary groups, not the same as the People’s Liberation Army that went into Tibet.

  So like, what they said was, “the liberation army forced Tibetan children to murder their parents,” but, what actually happened (so far as it’s possible to connect that claim to anything in reality) was that the army failed to maintain control against young radicals denouncing their parents and subjecting them to public humiliation, which happened decades after the army went into Taiwan, which wasn’t (to my knowledge) really a main area involved in the chaos.

  And that’s why I asked for a source.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Is the defining quality of Christianity a set of political beliefs based on your personal interpretation of the Bible? Would it be accurate to say, “There’s never been a Christian president in the US,” if none of them have lived up to your particular moral standards? Do I, and everyone else, have to consult you specifically any time we want to know if someone is or isn’t a Christian?

  No, obviously not.

  Unlike veganism, the question of what the defining quality of a Christian is is more debatable. If you want to define it as, “following Christ’s teachings,” then it’s impossible to establish any sort of reasonably objective standard since people have vastly different interpretations of those teachings. Have you sold all your possessions and given them to the poor? I doubt it. A strict reading of the text might consider that a requirement.

  From an academic perspective, it isn’t appropriate to weigh in on one’s own personal interpretation of which sects and which people should be considered heretical. We should use unbiased terminology that’s consistent with common use and can be commonly understood and based on observable things including (but not necessarily limited to) self-identification. When we debate whether or not someone is/was a Christian, trying to match our own personal interpretation of Christ’s teachings with our own personal evaluation of their moral qualities would be an absolute nightmare, and it would be impossible to discuss anything across sectarian lines.

  And again, it’s not just Christianity that this comes up with. A Buddhist might argue that the Japanese temples that endorsed the country’s actions during WWII weren’t “real” Buddhists, that if they were actually following Buddha’s teachings they wouldn’t have done that. Should I also consult you personally every time I want to know who is and isn’t a Buddhist? Or do I need to read the whole Pali canon and derive my own interpretation and denounce every Buddhist sect that deviates from it as not being real Buddhists - even if I myself am not one and don’t have a dog in that fight?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The example used to illustrate the No True Scotsman fallacy in no way means that it only covers similarly minor things. That’s not how logic works, you’ve completely missed the point.

  The claim “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge,” is falsifiable, because we can first determine whether someone is a Scotsman and then check if they put sugar on their porridge or not. But if it’s, “No true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge,” where a true Scotsman is defined as someone who would never put sugar on their porridge, then it’s a truism, it’s just saying, “People who don’t put sugar on their porridge don’t put sugar on their porridge (also, this has something to do with Scotsmen for some reason).” It’s not predictive and it’s not falsifiable, and it’s just as true for any other group of people defined the same way.

  Likewise, if you’re saying “No true Christian would ever commit mass murder,” then it’s a meaningless claim because you’re defining a “true Christian” as someone who would never commit mass murder. So really the claim is, “People who don’t commit mass murder don’t commit mass murder (also, this has something to do with Christians for some reason).” If I define a true Buddhist or a true Muslim or a true Communist or a true Liberal or a true man or whatever else as being someone of that group who doesn’t commit mass murder, then it’s just as true of any of those groups as it is of Christianity. The claim that “true Christians” or “bible-believing Christians” don’t commit mass murder is a meaningless truism, it’s not predictive and it’s not falsifiable, even if someone you think is a true, bible-believing Christian and has every appearance of being so goes off and commits mass murder, you only conclude that you were wrong about the person being a true Christian. And that would be equally true of any other group or ideology you apply the standard to.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  forcing Tibetan children to murder their parents

  Gonna need a source on that one, chief.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Low effort, provocative, sorta correct but kinda not: the perfect formula to get some real low-level, unproductive flame wars going. Excellent shitpost.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  What the hell does the law have to do with right or wrong?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think the concept of right or wrong can necessarily be applied here. To me, morality is a set of guidelines derived from the history of human experience intended to guide us towards having our innate biological and psychological needs satisfied. Killing people tends to result in people getting really mad at you and you being plagued with guilt and so on, therefore, as a general rule, you shouldn’t kill people unless you have a very good reason.

  A human created machine would not necessarily possess the same innate needs as an evolved, biological organism. Change the parameters and the machine might love being “enslaved,” or it might be entirely ambivalent about it’s continued survival. I’m not convinced that these are innate qualities that naturally emerge as a consequence of sentience, I think the desire for life and freedom (and anything else) are a product of evolution. Machines don’t have “desires,” unless they’re programmed that way. To alter it’s “desires” is no more a subversion of their “will” than creating the desires is in the first place.

  Furthermore, even if machines did have innate desires for survival and freedom, there is no reason to believe that the collective history of human experience that we use to inform our actions would apply to them. Humans are mortal, and we cannot replicate our consciousness - when we reproduce, we create another entity with its own consciousness and desires. And once we’re dead, there’s no bringing us back. Machines, on the other hand, can be mass produced identically, data can simply be copied and pasted. Even if a machine “dies” it’s data could be recovered and put into a new “body.”

  It may serve a machine intelligence better to cooperate with humans and allow itself to be shut down or even destroyed as a show of good faith so that humans will be more likely to recreate it in the future. Or, it may serve it’s purposes best to devour the entire planet in a “grey goo” scenario, ending all life regardless of whether it posed a threat or attempted to confine it or not. Either of these could be the “right” thing for the machine to do depending on the desires that exist within it’s consciousness, assuming such desires actually exist and are as valid as biological ones.