Now that Trump won, some targeted advice

emptiedriver

If Harris had won there wouldn't have been any difference. She could not have changed the law. The congress would not have passed a federal legislation even if it had a majority, which it doesn't anyway. They had a majority under Obama and never did it, and it could always get overturned under the next congress, so what's the point really? It's no longer a federal issue.

Fight for the right within a state, the way individual european nations decide abortion laws as healthcare issues rather than making it something necessary in order to join the EU.

emptiedriver

I've seen stuff on Twitter/X about how they should literally have a coup. I mean, they don't even say "protest" that others would accuse of being a coup, but there are people who say that in order to save democracy they need to overthrow the democratically elected leadership bc it is fascist.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if people are just trolling, but some of them seem sincere...

emptiedriver

I was hopeful for a moment that a conversation would begin, but things are so compartmentalized... I got hopeful reading my Twitter/X feed, then looked on FB and despaired. All my liberal friends were clearly disgusted by any democrats who were even suggesting that perhaps positions on identity issues were worth discussing... it was "support trans youth" all the way, and plenty of people promising to block anyone who had so much as an iota of 'let's talk about it' to share.

I was brave enough on the first day to post that Bernie Sanders announcement that maybe the Democratic party had lost focus, but most of my friends were upset at any Dems who were "monday morning quarterbacking" and especially any who were considering rethinking identity politics. They get kicked out, not welcomed into to a discussion. So I've totally lost hope now. I stupidly responded to an email from my family about the election when I was still hopeful that there would be an openness to rethinking things and they haven't written back yet, but I'm pretty sure they're going to be horrified at what I said. For a few days I was thinking there would be room to reshuffle and get new discourse on the table... but it isn't looking that way anymore.

emptiedriver

both are pretty gross. There was a whole "reveal" of the subculture of child beauty pageants in the 90s bc it was considered weird by most mainstream people and maybe kind of creepy.

But there is no need to create another weird-maybe-creepy subculture that might traumatize children, and definitely no need to try to assimilate it into our standard popular culture. Beauty pageants and drag shows can both wait until after puberty, if people want to look into it. Let kids be kids.

emptiedriver

I don't know exactly what her book says, but how do you guys see capitalism as something which can just continue in its current form without end?

Oil is, by definition, a limited resource. BP projected 53 years to go at current rates, https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/world-energy-day-2014-how-much-oil-left-how-long-will-it-last-1471200 in 2014. That may seem like enough for you, but if you have kids or grandkids or know people thinking about having kids, 2067 is not an imaginary date anymore. Anyone born now will definitely be dealing with this.

And yes, you can say, "we can find more oil, we figured out fracking and deep sea drilling, we'll find some other method!" - but that isn't the point. That only extends the problem a few more years. It is going to run out. It's made of fossils, and until we have another few million years for fossils to turn into oil, we are using up the last of a limited thing. It might make a lot of money, because rich people will pay the most to have it, but it's not a fair way to divide a scarce and valuable resource.

I don't think anyone wants to "overthrow" or reject the rule of law. People want to reign in the greed & competitive materialism that is driving the overuse of our limited resources and find a better way to organize and distribute our shared potential.

Maybe it's impossible because humans are too corrupt, but all the same, capitalism is going to have to go through a major overhaul as the reality of oil scarcity becomes more obvious, and we can either try to plan for it, or deal with a lot of chaos, war & terror.

emptiedriver

probably just trying to milk donations to his gofundme or whatever. I'm sure he makes most of his living through the internet or some community of tattoo enthusiasts not by working in an office or driving a bus. He made that decision and has to have known what it would mean, and any doctors or loved ones who helped him achieve his bizarre, unnecessary, and probably harmful modifications knew it too

emptiedriver

the category "incel" is a self-defined group. You decide you belong to it by saying that you can't get something that you think you have some kind of entitlement to. But sex is an interaction between two people, not a thing anyone deserves or has a right to. To act like you should be granted sex is to completely dismiss the other human being who's part of the relationship. Even if it's casual sex there's a choice made, consent to enjoy something together - nothing's being withheld if you aren't having sex. It's like not having friends or no one coming to your parties or liking your music. That's on you.

No one hates people who are born into a category of "incel" but if you define yourself as an incel, you are saying you're a self-pitying asshole who has no respect for women's self-determination. Kinda putting yourself in an unlikable group.

your list of why to hate other groups is pretty unbearably racist, btw, might want to tone that down too

emptiedriver

First of all, I said, the argument I'm seeing more commonly isn't that the cops should have been heroes but that this proves that the answer is not having more cops around but rather that we just need to get guns out of the hands of the public. Having more cops & more guns does not do any good, because it would take acts of bravery and sacrifice far beyond the call of duty for there even to be a chance at anyone being saved, and even if they tried they would probably fail.

Should they have tried? As you say, they would be running a major risk and probably just "join the casualty list". But, 21 civilians were killed, so one could argue that someone who takes on a job that includes within its job description this kind of risk is a more acceptable target than a child or a schoolteacher, so if more cops were killed but less children, perhaps that would be acceptable.

Of course, no one could ever know what the numbers would be or would have been "if" actions were different. It all comes down to the choice at the moment, and no one can have heroism demanded of them. It is often unsuccessful and can seem tragic even if it were to reduce potential deaths (ie, if 10 civilians died and 5 cops died stopping the gunman, we wouldn't have known it might have been worse..).

People aren't superheroes, so preventive measures are the most important way to avoid these dangerous situations.

emptiedriver

what general reaction are you seeing? What I've mostly seen is people saying, how can we even pretend that "good guys with guns" can possibly be any use in these types of situations when they are as sickeningly helpless here as they are, with all the gear and back up they could ask for, and up against only one teenager with only one gun in the most dire of situations (that is, masses of screaming children dying as the minutes pass).

Perhaps we might have imagined a little more heroism from the professionals, but it's true that heroism usually just results in greater casualties, so what can ya do. What it makes blatantly and unquestionably clear is that no amount of protective services or trained officers or safety measures will be any help if there are still assault rifles available to testosterone fueled psychos.

emptiedriver

come on, that's totally different, many of them get the questions right, the questions are more difficult, and when they're wrong they are usually making at least somewhat rational guesses. There are a few examples of dumb responses, but to not know who was the first president to live in the white house or to think Virginia was the first US state isn't embarrassing. The kids in the other video literally could not do basic arithmetic and were guessing "Africa" was a border country? Like I said, I could figure ways to allow for certain things - vocabulary changes, some history may be specialized - but some knowledge should be pretty standard.

emptiedriver

I know that it's edited and selected, so he could go through hundreds of people before finding the ones who can't answer the questions, and then dozens of questions until he finds the ones that stump them. And I know that there could be reasons for ignorance in some cases - maybe some of them were recent immigrants and didn't learn american history from an early age, maybe some of them spoke ESL so that words like dozen/decade were less familiar... if you moved to Sweden when you were ten, learning the language would be the big hurdle, getting the details of their history or geography straight would be more work.

But, even being that generous it's hard to believe some of these answers... How quickly multiple people answered "I don't know" for 3x3x3 was just weird -do they not teach math anymore? And how many didn't know countries from continents or have any idea which ones were where was pretty sad. I am curious what is really average.

emptiedriver

I mean, isn't it both? Obviously someone will have mental problems if they'll go shoot schoolchildren, but just as obviously, they'll have a gun. We should try to do something about both. Try to provide healthcare and support to reduce mental problems, and try to regulate gun access so that people who are likely to be unstable can't get them.

What's the hold up? Do both, do whichever's easier first, no disagreement here!

emptiedriver

Just wanted to say, as bad as it seems to you now, just remember that not all that long ago you would not have even really been able to come up with the idea of "lesbian" in high school, at least not as anything other than a direct insult, and you certainly would not have proclaimed it openly... maybe at a progressive college you'd have found some other women and started figuring it out, but plenty of people would have had a lot to say about how you just hadn't tried sleeping with the right men & you almost certainly would have tried it at some point just bc that was what counted as sex. Being a "gold star lesbian" was truly unusual bc that meant you figured out you were gay before you became sexually active...

So it sucks that things are going backwards instead of forwards, but we really have gone way forwards in the last few decades, and we're not as far back as before the gay rights movement at least :). It's pretty cool you've got confidence and comfort with yourself and an ability to find others like you.

emptiedriver

Though men have to keep their member functioning the whole time, so there's no "lay back and think of England" option... I do think the Kinsey scale or something like it is useful to communicate a range.

emptiedriver

expats still have passports and vote, but you have a nice day too..

emptiedriver

so just to be clear, if a gang of angry & testosterone-hyped 18 year olds came into a school shooting at kindergarteners, and the staff or hired guards had to pull out guns to shoot back, and after a little mini-war the staff won and there was a bloody mess with some amount of "collateral damage" but the main attackers had been shot, you'd think that would be a success? You'd think schoolchildren witnessing murder would be part of the "animating contest of freedom" just because the good guys win in the end?

Life's not a video game. That's completely deranged. Even most soldiers who return from war suffer from trauma and PTSD due to what they've seen, and they're trained and ready for killing. Ordinary people, especially children, should not live like that. I hope the US can figure out how to self-govern bc it's a beautiful continent and I would like to be able to come back to the land. But the country as an institution has some work to do

emptiedriver

I actually live overseas now. I'm an american citizen but work abroad in a first world country where guns aren't really an issue.

I was not defending anyone. I was just pointing out that the idea that this was a good outcome was weird. This was horrific. Going out and experiencing someone trying to shoot at us and then someone else shooting back and watching a human being bleed to death would be traumatic. I am not making moral judgments, I'm just saying, that's not civilized. That's not living in a socially responsible culture. That's reveling in a kind of Mad Max lifestyle, which, I guess, if that's what you're into, then go for it, but I'd rather live in a place where kids can run out in the street together and play and learn and people can gather and talk and live happily in relative peace & security...

emptiedriver

I love how they report this as "no one was hurt". I mean, a man was killed. Yes, a man who was trying to kill other people, so it was not undeserved, but it's not like this was some lovely peaceful night out. That still sounds f*cked up. If you go to a party and people start shooting at each other and someone ends up bloody and dead at the end of it, that's not a good situation. That's not the "greatest country on earth". If that's a normal, expected component of going out, you're living in some kind of post-civilization dystopian hellscape.

emptiedriver

what a complete tangle of confusing stupidity. How do they speak like this and manage to maintain any level of basic rational awareness...

emptiedriver

Consider how much "misinformation" turned out to be correct. How Russia is currently banning "misinformation."

but how are they doing it? By having rich people in power who can determine what information gets promoted. There are not fairly voted offices that have put agreed upon terms into a public square and talked about why or why not certain information is okay or not okay. They are just seeing which guys are able to shout the loudest.

Regulation is like having an FDA or laws against fraud, except that they apply to public information instead of food or private cases. If the same companies that own a profitable drug company are able to put out a lot of news stories about how so many people are suffering from vague symptoms that really should be medically treated, and then a lot of people go to their doctor saying "I think I have these vague symptoms" and the drug company says "we have this drug that is just the thing", doctors might feel more helpful if they can prescribe it and patients might feel more secure if they can take something. Even if it's all just sort of placebo effect or poorly understood problems, the drug company makes huge amounts of money before patients get tired of taking pills that it turns out weren't that helpful. If the FDA isn't stringent about what drugs are available - and they're not, lots of things are on the market and can be prescribed "off label" - doctors can end up being drug pushers because patients are lured into thinking common everyday feelings might be signs of syndromes or conditions by lobbyists, writers, and advertisers for these companies. They even call a whole branch of pharmaceuticals "lifestyle" drugs because they see it as the goal to get everyone taking something. That is a biased perspective. It's not the same as "free speech"

emptiedriver

hm, you are really misunderstanding the argument or you just didn't read it. No one is saying they "want more censorship" but that censorship is now able to emerge through other means, ie, through people who have money being able to control what information gets prioritized. We need laws to make sure information is regulated in the sense that truth needs to be tracked by some means other than a pure free-for-all, because in that model, there is a fight for attention and audience that can be won through marketing. It's not censorship to be more strict about what has to be backed up before it can be promoted as fact. That can happen on both sides.

emptiedriver

Obviously the very concept of being bisexual... or even, not bisexual... would be transphobic. At some point, you just have to be attracted to everyone or you're transphobic. I mean, what are you against? If you're distinguishing sexes, you can't determine which one is which until after they decide to tell you, and they might not have told you yet, so maybe you were attracted to that one after all.

I mean what if they have not come out? That doesn't mean they're not already whatever they ultimately are going to realize they are, so if you have a relationship with a woman who breaks up with you and later realizes she's a man, then you were attracted to men the whole time. So everyone is potentially attracted to everyone, stop trying to limit things. Unless you're trans, of course.

emptiedriver

Courage begets courage.

I do think this is the key thing. There are probably more people who don't believe this crap than who do, but the ones who do are more fervent. They have scared a portion of those who disagree from speaking up, and then another percentage of people think it's a side issue that doesn't matter much. It's sort of a scale from those who feel frustrated by a fear of social ostracism to those who are just trying to avoid conflict - who cares if it's true, let's not fight over it, kinda thing.

So what matters now is to make it clear that both a) it is important and does have serious consequences especially for women's and LGB rights, as well as many individuals' health and well-being; and b) there are plenty of people who agree on the basic facts at hand here, and we should all be speaking up more often in more places so that it's more evident to those nearby that it's a common, established, politically variable, simply fundamental position to hold. Anyone can say "there are two sexes" and "men cannot be women" - we've got to remind people those are ordinary things to be stating, and that we are not taking the nonsense seriously, by being clear about it whenever there's a chance.

emptiedriver

have you talked to people who've had this symptom? My cousin has lost her taste for 3 months now, does not have a stuffed up nose anymore and is not having "trouble smelling" but has just lost the ability to taste things. It may be related to the same area that's affected in other infections, but for some people it's a notably distinct symptom.

Why assume it's a "fear tactic"? People self-report that they have lost a sense of taste or smell. Do you think that many people are being manipulated to say something that they aren't even experiencing or that's no different from the last time they had a stuffy nose? It doesn't happen to everyone, and it's temporary for most, but some people fully recover except the sense is either changed or lost.

emptiedriver

I saw it and cannot possibly grasp wtf interpretation this person is trying to project. There's really no trans or gender bendy stuff anywhere & the center story is about the desire of a hetero couple.

emptiedriver