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Pointless poll

Favorite vampire?

Sheridan Le Fanu's CarmillaWikipedia (1872)

10

Vote

Bram Stoker's DraculaWikipedia (1897)

16

Vote

F. W. Murnau's NosferatuWikipedia (1922)

7

Vote

Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's The Tomb of DraculaWikipedia (1972-1979)

4

Vote

The legendary Chupacabra vampire goat sucker

12

Vote

To do list

Is there a pre-existing term for this?[edit]

I have met individuals in the past who have been non-white and have used their status as non-white to dismiss or provide defences for other forms of oppression. I.e. adultism, ableism, queerphobia, etc. I am not speaking to the more justifiable criticism of critiquing the way these struggles draw analaogies to racism, that may be displaced. No, I think there is a genuine case to be made there. I am talking more so about people who state something like that because casually using the word "retard" isn't racist, it's morally permissible. If I object to it, saying that it's ableist, the criticism of ableism is framed as "white bullshit" and the individual continues using the word.

I have also witnessed people leveraging their status as non-white to defend iffy stances like the Irish slave myth or defend class exploitation, child abuse, etc. I feel like language to describe this behaviour should already be a thing, but I find it hard to find any literature on it. Asking around if anyone knows of an appropriate term to call this behaviour? An example may be something like a black person thinking that objecting to the word "faggot" is white bullshit, etc. Obviously, that is homophobic, but I am interested specifically in the use of one's oppressed status to justify oppressive behaviour. Like often these arguments have a weird implication that says disabled people or gay people don't exist in non-white communities....which is absurd. It probably works to marginalize such people in such communities even further, as it sort of implicated their non-existence, rendering them invisible.

Is this simply appealing to one's own authority? Anti-intersectionality? Oppression Olympics? I have only met a handful of people like this in my life, but dealing with some Palestinian acquaintances right now who throw around such language as "retard", and make weird casually homoerotic rape jokes in online games like it is an endangered species, then go on tell me "shut the fuck up, you're white" if I say something like "I don't like language like that, I think you should maybe stop using it" is getting hella exhausting. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

It is just up to you. You never have to engage with hate online, but if you do and get dismissed, it's their loss. And if it's online, you aren't really being oppressed, you're having your opinion challenged, probably disingenuously because a lot of people believe that trash talk works. I would say the word is a snarl word, but again, online, it's what you do with it. Growing up, my older brother knew if he called me a retard or a faggot, I was throwing hands and employed them in order to kick my ass. I tried a million insults on him, but the problem was he already knew them because I learned them from him. Not speaking on it is not the solution. The homoerotic rape joke stuff, I saw it coming from a real weird guy I worked with named Anus, not his real name but in real life somebody called him Anus and he thought it was hilarious, he was in high school and also thought the joke 'Hitler did nothing wrong' was top shelf, I did my best to discourage one of the jokes that wasn't OK, but I do remember him saying he was gonna fuck my dad before that meme blew up. I looked him straight in the eye, as his elder, and said 'you don't talk about my family'. He didn't talk like that to anyone afterwards, but he still made strange edgy jokes. Honestly, Anus was a naturally funny kid. A gem. His edge, for moving from online only to a group of real people only sharpened.
The must be retort more powerful than the insult, I would suggest rather than picking an insulting term, a response might blow their minds. Respondingg with 'hey, don't cut yourself on all that edge' Or a your mom response 'Weird, because your mom and I are friends, and we talk about you.'. I mean, if you can't vamp on that one, Then you don't know enough about these guys to worry if they are syour friends. I know a lot of guys who think, from movies, just giving each other shit and laughing about it is male friendship. I have run a majorally male warehouse , and I have had to interrupt, and say, literally 'Are you guys doing that thing where you're pretending to give each other a hard time but actually your feelings are getting hurt?' Adult men. And before I was in charge, I witnesIsed fistfights and wrestling matches. You ask that question, and the pride of no masculine feelings destroys all tension. But you have to understand your snarl words enough to know that the people who use them are ignorant of them and they don't have the understanding to use them in a truly harmful way against you.Torrent (talk) 05:52, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
The truth is, a lot of folks only give a damn about societal issues when it hits their 'own bubble'. In my experience, this is more often seen in people who are politically right-wing - that the moment a problem [such as homelessness] runs outside of their own personal experience they are incapable of empathising. Lack of empathy means lack of understanding, which leads to a complete lack of action on the issue. I've actually coined this issue 'the Cheney factor'; that the moment his daughter outed herself to him was the day LGBT rights became personal to him and he moved to dampen down the most homophobic elements swirling around Bush Jr. I've seen instances of where in the space of five mins a person has given a nuanced and intelligent decription of a marginalised group's problems to repeating the worst stereotypes of another.
The only time I've remotely managed to get through to anyone with this issue was arguing 'mutual tolerance/respect'. That if you want people to not call you [redacted], [redacted] or make jokes about [redacted] in return you must not call them [redacted] or make refrences about [redacted]. I don't give a damn in this case if you think the others 'mean nothing', it's simply about avoiding fucking blood on the carpet - there shall be some people elsewhere who think nothing of you but they are also biting their tongues. There's not much futher you can really go on this unless they've genuinely wish to learn, which in my experience is rare as hell. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:12, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
There is no pre-existing term for a marginalized group acting bigoted; this is because they are just bigoted. A black person, to give one example, certainly can be homophobic (hip-hop has been justifiably criticized for some pretty nasty examples of such). RW has an article on black supremacy for a reason. A group that is marginalized in one place may be the majority in another, so this has led to some very nasty anti-LGBTQ laws in Africa, eg Uganda.[1] Blacks are just an example here; you can pretty much rinse and repeat for *every* group out there, marginalized or not. TERFs and transphobic homosexuals, Jewish supremacists, racism in Asian countries, Islam xenophobes, the list goes on and on. Empathy is not the norm for humanity, unfortunately, IMHO. I agree with KarmaPolice that traditionally it is more the so called "right wing" (at least in Western-space, probably Asia-space too from what I can tell) that engages in anti-empathetic behavior, due to a greater emphasis on "traditional" society values or roles. But as noted above, it is not *exclusively* within that domain.
A lot of people's "bubble" involves them absorbing stereotypes without actually meeting the people in said stereotypes and failing to understand how much bullshit is involved with them. Even if there are elements of truth in the stereotypes, such is often grossly exaggerated. And yes, "the Cheney factor" reminds me of a compilation of anecdotes widely circulated on the Internet in the early days entitled "the only moral abortion is my abortion". One of the great ironies of religion is that so many of them actually do contain text encouraging empathy, but so many followers of the religion ignore said text and use the cloak of religion as justification for bigoted self-centered behavior. While Cheney had his "bubble" pierced a little, this doesn't happen for everyone who is personally affected on something they are bigoted about, unfortunately. BobJohnson (talk) 13:46, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
i dont know why anyone would be surprised at this. membership of an oppressed group does not prevent someone holding prejudices against another oppressed group. this should not come as a surprise. it should not come as a surprise certain prejudices are super common in some groups and super virulent too. with reference to homophobia specifically as an example, its no secret homophobia is present in most muslim communities, in the islamic world and in the west. in london, there are obviously going to be lgbt muslim people with the muslim communities there. but they are functionally invisible in those communities as a result of the homophobic sentiment in those communities. you either stay in the closet or you leave that community. either way, no gays in the muslim neighbourhood. that means all criticism of the homophobia in those communities comes from outside. often these communities already feel under attack from the outside, islamophobic sentiment common in the press, from, politicians of all stripes. they are attcked for being muslim, their defining identity, by a non muslim majority. people who just want equality attack them for their homophobia but say its not their muslim beliefs, and attacked by white racist groups who are probably just as homophobic say homophobia is fundamental to the being muslim. to muslims probably sounds like they both hate muslims. to them probably looks like white people hate muslims probably looks like white folk trying to diminish their faith, water it down by imposing something alien and in antithesis to their culture and religion and values. something abhorrent to them. a corruption not from within but from outside. they pull up the drawbridge and resist this poison from the white infidels.
should one be surprised that palestinians may be homophobic? sadly probably not. should a palestinian friend be taken task for homophobic comments? no doubt. will they appreciate the criticism? well that comes down to the individuals involved. palestinians have a cause in need of support and no doubt grateful to all it may come from. but whatever your intentions, you still look and sound like their oppressors and beating them with the same stick. the last person they heard that 'white bullshit' from probably used it to justify shelling his home.
criticism from white folk directed at a group once or currently oppressed by white folk doesnt make the criticism invalid, but it does make it very easy to ignore. ::::AMassiveGay (talk) 14:02, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Stereotypes are also frequently fairly outdated too; for example, I've heard right-wingers going on about the unemployed sitting around watching their 'widescreen TV' [when was the last time you saw a non-widescreen TV?] all day while living the lifestyle of Onslow from Keeping Up Apperances [ended 1995]. This is unsurprising when it's recalled that in the UK a lot of these are being peddled by Boomer journos to be read by other Boomers, some of which literally haven't updated their worldview for decades [qv, Littlejohn - telling us how it is in the UK from his Florida condo since the late 90s]. But the truth is, shite like this isn't designed to be evidence, they're simply thought-terminating clichés to stop critical thinking.
The other aspect which is notable is the 'exception makes the rule' situation some folks end up in - for example a person feeling that the unemployed are 'dole scoungers' because their own mother spent their entire live 'playing the system' so they could avoid having a job for twenty years and was/is always trying to get 'more gives' out of anyone [no, they really did]. This is more difficult to counter because we have elevated 'personal experience' to some kind of indisputable position [ie feels over facts] - which can be deadly if we have some totally unrepresentative minority idiot [qv, Braverman, Patel, Sunak etc] telling 'their story' which a non-minority person would feel uncomfortable in refuting the conclusions of even if they have literal stats to show it [like Gay points out].
[Hey hey, Gay!] KarmaPolice (talk) 14:35, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
This is one of those things that has been bothering me as of late. It really takes you down a rabbit hole of dilemmas over tolerance, respectability politics, tone policing, freedom of speech, "freedom vs equality", loaded language and all that other fun stuff. Granted, I've been in a shitty state in the last few months, but it has shown me how people can get really conflicted over this sort of thing and can seek out conclusions that just "feel better." For instance, there's this one little part in the back of my mind that starts acting up any time someone with a pro-Palestinian position says something questionable. I'm trying to push that down for myself, but I can see other people being influenced by it all, letting emotional arguments pulling them to an opposite side. Again, respectability politics and all, but that does influence a lot of people. Doesn't really seem like you can do more than ask people to play nice, but that's not going to work (and someone's going to start yelling "You can't tell people what they can and can't say!").
I don't know. The whole thing just a pile of despair and my brain's been a goddamn mess with too much shit floating around. Paul S (talk) 17:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I should clarify the thing of novelty for me is not of minorities being bigoted, that isn’t novel. The novelty is in appealing to one’s status as a minority as a rationalization or grounds of dismissal to the accusation of bigotry. There is no “surprise” in finding minorities being bigoted, and I do think Karma is right to assert that in a lot of cases it is about people being concerned about their “own bubble”. I know that is definitely true in the case of my acquaintances. But I am more interested in the fallacy of the rhetoric (beyond the obvious ad hom). I.e. given you’re white you cannot criticize me for x kind of bigotry, because whatever it is it is not as a big of deal as the racism that effects me. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I think actually the most pressing example that y’all might of experienced online is in the comments section on a post about hitting kids. You’ll often see PoC who were hit as children themselves along side the usual crowd of “I was hit and I turned out fine”, stating that opposition to hitting children, or those who haven’t been hit as children are “predominantly white” — and that is appealed to as reason why doing so is okay. I had a Vietnamese co-worker express as much to me once, talking about how normal it was among his family for kids to get hit and that it was some “white bullshit” to oppose “physical discipline”. You can call this attitude “adultism” but there is something characteristic about the rhetoric afforded to non-whites, that white people who engage in similar practices can’t appeal to. That phenomena is something I desire a term for. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
I'd argue more the simple fact that if it's within your 'own bubble' you're basically forced to learn more about it [well, unless you simply disown them]. For example, Cheney had to re-consider any stereotypes he held re: lesbians when he realised he had 'produced' one. What's more, they have a ready-made 'guide/teacher' who will [usually] be more willing to field the stupid/insane/insulting questions with relative good humour - including but not limited to 'can't you stop feeling that way?'
For the latter bit... if anyone ever pulled the 'you're white so you cannot comment on any minority' I would simply turn around and say 'does this apply to the likes of Suvella Braverman [or some horrid example of humanity] too?' for this is just minority ultracrepidarianism. However, in the case in particular I would point out that no, the LGBT community does find that offensive and if you say otherwise, I will then curtly inform them that they are now policing my own feelings.
In fact, if I was in an onery enough mood, I might say that to them even if it wasn't true, just to fuck with their heads. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:27, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
The perennial problem concerning justice with respect to minorities is that, given a chance, minority groups can be as intolerant as any larger group. African Americans are culturally conservative. LBGT people are the alphabet people to many including one another. Minority groups, on average consider their group to be paramount and all others worthy of criticism. Asians are white-adjacent, and if they or middle-east people call out "white people," if you listen closely, they are often calling out western enlightenment values, and it has nothing to do with "whiteness". Every minority has its hierarchies. In general, it's hard to understand the hardships of minority groups to which one is an outsider. I know of no theory that adequately accounts for these problems. — Unsigned, by: UncleKrampus / talk / contribs
Being a part of a group that's faced a lot of trouble may give you extra potential interfaces for empathy with other groups that have faced a lot of trouble, but it's hardly a sure thing. At the least I might tell them that there are certainly people who are from their own communities who are part of both groups (thus where intersectionality came from), although I don't know how effective saying that really is. It seems more effective if they hear it from an actual breathing person from that experience, especially a friend or family member. (Assuming they are in fact the sort to retort "well you're white" or some such when this comes up.)
If we want a kind of "case study" minority community for these subjects, we might look at black Americans. There are a lot of black people in this country with anywhere ranging from very socially conservative to very progressive views, all in sizable numbers. You can look at discussions about how black people suffering mental illness are treated, or how black women are treated, and how these problems have been addressed as well as partly but not quite fully ever solved. I believe decades ago there was some kind of internal dialectic in the Black Panther Party regarding sexism, and even pro versus anti gay sentiments and that Angela Davis had something to do with that shift towards more inclusion long before gay inclusion was more mainstream. The history with things like that would be somewhere to look to understand how inclusion can come about organically within minority communities that previously may have held more prejudiced views. Chillpilled (talk) 00:22, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I cannot believe how many people have engaged this with an 'actually, minorities DON'T get a pass for being upset about any of this shit.' All racism is bad, yes. Systemic racism is real, yes. Parking racist/cultural ideas I that don't apply to an individual is racist, yeah? Existing in a multicultural system means you're going to carry the weight of your culture. Be a good white and laugh it off, I'm not joking, it's OK. They aren't after you. I know a white kid who honestly thinks he has the n word pass because he was friends with all the black kids at his high school and has been to jail. That's stupid. I have never witnessed him use the n word in front of a black person he doesn't know. I think he is happy he's got it, but fundamentally understands there's no such thing as the pass. Torrent (talk) 08:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
which brings me to my next point, there is no such thing as the pass. Racism is racism snarl words that have been coopted and colored are not that powerful. If I am called a 'cracker' and have space to defend myself, I generally tend towards 'I like to see myself as more of a honkey than a cracker'. Which is a very recognizably white American thing to say. I've lived with black and native and Mexican people around me, just, casually, all of us living. I had the lucky spot of being a little kid for a lot of it, in a trailer home across the street from a black family, going to school with a Shawnee kid, who had his family come to do a powwow in the gym, with a strange exchange program for a native girl from Alaska who almost always refused to speak, but had a big smile, and with nobody cartoonishly saying 'people aren't people.' Culture is culture. White culture is ambiguous, you have to carry that weight. Torrent (talk) 08:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
my idea for a modern white culture is one of informed anti-racialism. This will be hard to explain. defending your whiteness is not accepting your whiteness, which if you've read anything worth reading about race, white people are generally doing this wrong. It doesn't reach as far as white critics of white are doing it right, all race criticism is still bad criticism, this isn't that. What, at least I mean is 'what a silly insecure world, that cultures would continue to be bloodthirsty for something so inauthentic as a line on a map.'Torrent (talk) 09:28, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
The only thing worth reading about race that I ever read is Negros with guns, by Robert F. Williams. This argued that having a gun and an opinion about civil rights is on the whole superior to just having an opinion about civil rights. Seemed to make sense at the time. UncleKrampus (talk) 02:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
I am also very familiar with Malcolm X, you have to be prepared to meet violence with violence. And I agree with that, until the tide shifts. Then, violence is insular and a show of who is really making a point and who is really violent. Is that the only thing, because there's a bunch a shit abot ZNH being edited or ghost written into obscurity. Fuckin, williams, so I don't know him, but that's nothing hard or special. On his side forever. Torrent (talk) 06:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Except that the LGBT community has been predominantly nonviolent, and has gotten farther in the last 50-60 years than the Black community has in 170. CorruptUser 06:31, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
I REALLY didn't want to have to respond to this. Before I do, is there something else to say there? A clarification? Please? Torrent (talk) 07:51, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Apparently CorruptUser forgot about the Stonewall riots.Wikipedia
How the fuck did we get into this tangent though from the original topic? BobJohnson (talk) 13:10, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Would Corrupt like to explain what "Except that the LGBT community has been predominantly nonviolent, and has gotten farther in the last 50-60 years than the Black community has in 170" even means? Carthage (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Sure.
While Stonewall riots were a thing, it caused 0 deaths, and AFAIK everyone that was injured was either the LGBT rioters or the cops that attacked them, never any bystanders. Compare that to the MLK riots just a year prior, which had a death toll of 43 and injured 3000 more, or any of the riots since then. The LGBT community has been very good at making itself "harmless", and never the aggressor, and the message has generally been "we are just people who want to live our lives, please stop attacking us!" As a result, the average person is not afraid of Gay people. And while the progress from less-violent or non-violent means seems slower, the progress that is made generates less pushback. Violent methods get more things done in a shorter amount of time... but result in so much pushback that any gains made with violence can be easily undone with more violence.
In 1960, it was worse socially to be Gay than to be Black, while today the opposite is true. How can we tell? To (badly) paraphrase Dave Chappelle, "if a Gay man and a Black man have a dispute, the Gay man remembers he's White and calls the police"; that was not the case in 1960. So in 60 years, Gay (White) men went from being "less" than Black men, to being "more". Which means they've made far more progress than the Black community has in that timeframe. And extending it back the 170, while being Black meant you basically had a few more rights than cattle, being Gay was actually a capital offense. So even at that time, Gay was below Black. CorruptUser 08:25, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── This completely ignores intersectionality (you, and by extension Chappelle, don't think gay black people exist?), and I don't really think we should be citing Dave Chappelle on anything. Also, while there are a lot of problems with this wall of text: you neglect to mention that during those exact same 1968 riots African American gangs in the south side of Chicago actually put a stop to the violence in that part of the city. There are also queer groups arming themselves in response to bigotry. No bigot expects a trans person to have a gun. I have actually heard stories where queer people have warned off bigoted would-be attackers by being armed. Carthage (talk) 08:33, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

That's why "White" was in parantheses... While no one likes Oppression Olympics, a couple questions do need to be asked.
Who was more hated by society in the 1950's; a Straight Black Man, or a Gay White Man?
Who is more hated by society in the 2020's?
Because it seems to me, as bad as life was for Black Straight men in the 1950s, it was worse for Gay White men. And that today, while both have it better than in the 1950s, Gay White men have it better than Straight Black men. That means the LGBT crowd has made a LOT more progress. CorruptUser 15:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
The answer to "who is more hated by society in the 2020s" is transgender men and women, which kind of throws a bit of a "monkey wrench" into your "analysis". BobJohnson (talk) 20:34, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
The question doesn't make a lot of sense. Society doesn't love or hate, or pay taxes, people do. The question collapses into an abstract statistical subject. Do trans people get more hate from society than any other extreme minority? Maybe, but I don't know how to decide that either. Generally, I would say that the Jews are more hated than any other minority group in America. They have their sponsors though and take violations to court whenever they can. Their condition and place in America is stable and nobody worries about their future other than their own ngos.UncleKrampus (talk) 00:40, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
It's so laughable that all of this is still ignoring intersectionality. "The most hated group in America" is a meaningless phrase because oppression intersects. Nor does it matter what form oppression takes. Positive discrimination (like philosemitism) is still discrimination. Carthage (talk) 00:47, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
It makes sense to talk about, but how is intersectionality useful? There are elements of every group from Aborigines to Zoroastrians that hate the Jews. So? Trans folks, Mormons, Catholics, British nobility, gay men, incels etc., even Jews as a group, all intersect non-trivially with the aggregate of anti-Semites. UncleKrampus (talk) 01:17, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
"Hmm, CorruptUser answered what we initially asked of him, and he has a solid argument, so let's bring up 'intersectionality' in order to drag down the conversation rather than admit that he's got a point" CorruptUser 03:48, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
No scholar worth their salt would consider your argument to be "solid." Furthermore, I bring up intersectionality (which you completely ignore) because while a white gay person may be able to claim white privilege in an interaction with the law, a black gay person doesn't have that same privilege. You are acting like "black" and "gay" are two completely separate sets that don't overlap, and so must be analyzed separately. This is shoddy scholarship. You have no argument worth taking seriously. Carthage (talk) 05:27, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
If White Privilege is stronger than Straight Privilege, you've proven my point. CorruptUser 12:48, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
When Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced intersectionality to legal scholarship the whole point was that there mere "additive" conceptions of discrimination were insufficient. She used specific cases where black women were being discriminated against legally by employers specifically for being black women, but the presence of black male workers and the presence of white female workers was used by courts to dismiss such claims. The rationale was that the presence of black men in the workplace "proved" that racist discrimination was not occurring, and that the presence of women workers "proved" that sexism was not occurring. The existing civil rights law at the time had no room to treat black women as if they could be a unique case for discrimination. This is ultimately what intersectionality is about. In many cases, it does not make sense to think of those existing within intersecting systems of oppression as simply experiencing (x + y), but rather the systems of oppression interact with themselves to produce unique forms of discrimination and prejudice. To talk about gay black people as if oppression exists simply as (racism + homophobia), and that one can identify the larger sum contributing to the equation is mistaken. Gay black folks are subject to forms of discrimination entirely unique to them that are not experienced by other black people, or other gay people. The fact that such individuals are then systematically worse off as a demographic compared to straight black people, and white gay people suggests that the compounding effects are unique enough to make any discussion about which prejudices or discrimination axis is "stronger" entirely misinformed. It doesn't work like that. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:29, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
Except that nothing says that Black Female is always socially lower than Black Male or White Female just because overall racism/sexism exist, it's entirely possible for Black Female to be above Black Male or White Female even if, on average, Women are below Men and Black below White. So then you'll have to look at every category. But even ignoring bi-racial people, if we include Hispanics and Asians (ignoring other ethnic groups and how you can be both Hispanic and African and all that), that's 8 categories that need to be evaluated separately. If we also include Gay, Bi, Straight, that's 24 categories, without getting into all sorts of variations of Bi or Asexual. Now add in Trans, and you have 48 categories, even if we kept it simple and ignored NB, Queer, etc. Add in neurodiversity, and you have 96. Add in disability, and it's 192. Add in religion, polyamory, age, and suddenly we have tens of thousands of categories. Is a Buddhist Hispanic cisgender neurodivergent disabled asexual woman in a worse place than a Atheist Asian transgender neurotypical ablebodied bisexual man? Or is the superlative superfluous at this point?
Intersectionality has its uses, but when it comes to the general status of Black or Gay communities in 2024, versus the status of Black or Gay communities in 1954 or 1854, these distinctions are being used as nothing more than rhetorical technique meant to distract from the simple, hard to deny reality; that while life has improved overall for Black people since the 1860s, life has improved far more overall for the LGBT community in less time, to the point where socially, on average, a Gay White Man has it better than a Straight Black Man. CorruptUser 05:14, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

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Without any statistics (a Dave Chappelle quote does not count), this is all just "Internet hot air" to "prove" a rather spurious suggestion -- that A) LGBT people have advanced far more than African American people, and B) that violence is the reason why. These are honestly frankly sweeping statements on a complicated, long lasting historical topic that from my perspective is *extremely* too simplistic. To throw (yet another) monkey wrench: there is no equivalent of the Tulsa Race Massacre for homosexuals, nor there is the equivalent of Ku Klux Klan mobs for homosexuals (not that the KKK didn't hate homosexuals, mind you... they also hated Jews and Catholics too. But I can't find the equivalent of lynch mobs that the Black community experienced. The KKK hated African Americans above all else.). The truth is, if you were homosexual but in all other respects part of "the majority society", you had one options that black people did not: you could hide it, Rock HudsonWikipedia style. It's much harder to hide skin color.
A general statement I can easily make is that life has improved for both LGBTQ+ and African American communities; however, phobias still hugely exist, and that we have a way to go with both. I don't think it's easy to directly compare "which has improved more or less". I think even discussing the legacy of more "radical" activists in whether they help or harm is more complicated than you have made it. Feminism has had their weird and kooky extremists, same with environmentalists, yet the "core movement" has remained unaffected, and progress has been made with both (as has been made with race relations). I don't think radicals have the impact that you think they do. In my experience, the radicals are often used as "crutches" to justify deeper racism. In my lifetime, the one event that has provoked the most racist white backlashWikipedia has not been anything that some radical Black activist has said. Rather, it has been the election of Barack Obama as president. BobJohnson (talk) 12:37, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
@CorruptUser Kimberle Crenshaw doesn't actually say that "black females" are always "socially lower" than black men or white women. That's not the argument. Look back at what I wrote. The argument is that black women experience unique forms of prejudice and discrimination specific to being black women that are not reducible to simply (anti-black racism + sexism against women). Black women are specifically the targets of certain forms of prejudice that neither black men nor white women are subject to. Likewise, there are stereotypes about black men that black women aren't subject to. Black women are not framed as a sexual threat to white women the way black men are as an example. We have tropes and stereotypes specific to black women (i.e. the angry black woman trope). So when we talk about "gay" people, and specifically look at the intersections of black gay people -- the stereotypes, prejudices, and forms of discrimination that such a demographic faces likely are not generalizable to homophobia and/or racism as a whole. We cannot make sense of that racism by looking at the racism faced by non-gay black people, nor can we make the same inference from homophobia experienced by non-black gay people. The fact you frame it as categories that need to be analyzed separately proves you are not getting it. Intersections of oppression are not tools to be used, they are a current objective fact of our social lives. When refusing an intersectional analysis you are, in essence, refusing a factual analysis and distorting the realities of oppression. You're entire response to based in a very poorly constructed strawman that provides strong evidence you do not read what I wrote. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
> "life has improved far more overall for the LGBT community in less time, to the point where socially, on average, a Gay White Man has it better than a Straight Black Man."
... and there you go, proving once again you do not understand the issue. You are making inferences about the LGBT community as a whole based on the advances that gay white men have received. That's distortive. Gay white men do not make up the majority of the LGBT+ community, that would be bisexuals who have a much higher rate of poverty. The poverty rate for LGBT people on the whole according to an analysis published in 2023 was at 17% by 2021 [2]. According to census data, black Americans have a poverty rate of roughly 17% as of 2022 [3]. If this data is correct this disproves your claim, the poverty rates are comparable if not statistically insignificant in difference. Notice though, that breaking down this data, the highest of those in poverty among the LGBT populations are trans people and people of colour. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:12, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
if the point is that there are inalienable human rights of just being, existing not by choice but by horrible happenstance, and then somehow some people don't agree about the terms of you existing, just because you've been born? then I would hope you and I both default to human rights before we make anything other than just being dead or whatever harder than it needs to be. A lot of thought in the US has placed importance on racial terms instead of on just being, which is stupid, because I've talked to those guys that say that, and not only do they really buy into it, they all look just like me. So, I personally don't think saying LGBT rights advocates in America have made the generally peaceful headway to where they are now on their own. I don't think every 'hey hey I'm gay, I'm here to stay' action has actually caused real change in America. Sometimes, it's as simple as 'Look man, I know this date is important to you, and you, you can't wear khaki shorts.' and I honestly don't think anyone who was being honest would think otherwise, let alone actually care. It is the exact same as saying black America shoulda been a culture that begged their way to equal rights, 'They could have done it non violently' is like saying violence was never part of it, like nobody kicked the shit out of them for just being. Not for having ideas or lives. They got the shit kicked out of them because somebody was like 'here's a really easy reason to' I don't think you could ever say , without being a small, dumb dumb idiot that the LGBT community begged for their place without actually having merit while constantly getting the shit kicked out of them if not murdered. And getting some acceptance? I don't think you'd ever voice a documentary with Morgan Freeman and say 'before they could fight for their place, the white American community just kinda told them 'that's ok, but if you gotta drink water, please do it from that fountain over there because it kinda grosses us out to think about sharing water. Not with us, with you, specifically'. And then whitey crawled through a tube of poo, and everything was solved' It's really, really strange to whatabout these movements against each other when neither is finished or currently particularly violent. Torrent (talk) 09:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────late, but i have some thoughts. one term that comes to mind is oppression olympics. i'm very much allergic to people who do this kind of thing. i see latin americans doing this a lot when they say racist things about black people. "well, i'm hispanic/latino. there's no way i can be racist." never mind that latin america and the caribbean have much the same racist history that the usa does. they might be able to fool (most) gringos and (some) lat-ams, but they can't fool me.

in general, though, i find it very off-putting when people pretend to be victims. i especially find it amusing when those holding the levers of power still think they have a claim of victimhood. (example: white americans are the most privileged people to have ever existed, and they still play the victim when it cones to things like affirmative action and teaching minority history, among so many other things. but i digress.) that said, i don't find it any better when minorities do it, and then weaponize their own victimhood (real or imagined) to push their bigotry. The G (talk) 07:01, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

is there no reason to say something like racism is a white person problem? Obiously.everybody here is screaming 'I'm not racist, look who is racist' and that's not the point. The racism,if you hide behind culture, is always going to zero in. We have answered the preexisting question, how the fuck does this do any good arguing on nonsense termz? Torrent (talk) 05:42, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I would never replace an s with a z, that is inauthentic.Torrent (talk) 05:54, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

American cops and American cops who shoot dogs[edit]

https://scholars.unh.edu/unh_lr/vol17/iss1/18/

Cops are trained to shoot dogs in a life or death scenario. Cops are also trained that every scenario is life or death. Somehow, this correlates with a statistic that implies just shooting dogs. So the difference in the title is nothing, until American cops stop unloading on dogs. I was attacked by a dachshund let out for a pee, while I was just walking home. It must have looked to that the tiny little dog that I was headinvg straight for them, and it bravely charged me and just kinda bonked off my leg and started barking. You know what I did? I laughed, little sweetheart, I'm not here to hurt anybody and did not break my stride. I did wave hi to the guy. Sometimes I walk to a gas station, and there is a dog that starts barking at me. I never go meet it, but I do whistle a little two-note tune every time I walk past, because I want this dog to know, I'm just walking past. It actually worked tonight. The dog that wants to bark is very useful, a bark is a good alert. This dog is a shepherd collie mix, if I can guess from across a street, while walking. You absolutely cannot do this 'ain't I just walking?' training if you are not a just walking. Any approach to the dog, as long as my heart is wide, negates the training that, ah will whistle two tones, stay on my side if the street and you have identified me. The dog barked at me, I gave the whistle, and dog just stopped barking. Y'all are never gonna believe this, but I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. Torrent (talk) 08:53, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

The point is, with a dog, it's not supposed to know me, but it a does remember me because we meet each other on very dog ass terms. It doesn't leave the back yard, I don't approach the back yard. The bark is loud, the whistle is two notes, and there's no more barking for the neighborhood. A big bark against me as soon as it sees me from across the street, not bad or dumb or unusual. It's a dog, it's gonna do dog shit. Torrent (talk) 09:18, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
This is literal. Torrent (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
There's also the psychological issue that a vicious dog is terrifying, in a way that bullets are not. When a cop shows up and has to arrest someone, well, even if the owner doesn't resist that dog is not going to be happy. CorruptUser 06:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
There are plenty of cases where cops shot dogs while mistakenly raiding the wrong address, or the right address but the perp they're after hasn't lived there for years. Carthage (talk)`
They've also shot people at the wrong address. The solution to dog-shooting is quite simple, actually; if the cop can't prove beyond a preponderance of evidence that the dog was dangerous, then the officer must pay for the dog. Your family pet is worth a lot more to you than the $500 cost of a dog, but that the $500 is probably worth a lot more to the officer than the power-trip of killing someone's pet. CorruptUser 04:24, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
The state pays for extrajudicial misjudgment all the time. That's not a new solution. That's a garbo libertarian argument. [ A sherriff literally faked his own assassination attempt https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/a-phony-murder-plot-against-joe-arpaio-winds-up-costing-taxpayers-11-million-6629798] (notice I put the horse in front of the cart there, I know how to edit to format and I'm choosing not to) costing the state a million in a settlement, which does not take into account the man-hours it takes to make the scheme work in the first place. $500 for a dog, are you insane? Do you think that is a prohibitive cost, or do you just want dogs shot? Or are you getting eaten up by the Rand worm that says 'well, we've never actually tried free market capitalism?' For profit prisons are a thing. For profits police forces are a thing any time their bottom line requires a full prison. 1 million dollars is a stupid Austin Powers joke to them. Torrent (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
when did you turn heel, man? We can disagree, but the bad guys are still the bad guys. Torrent (talk) 08:34, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
What we have here is a bad case of cops believing their own propaganda (that there's a war on police and the average patrol beat is like patrolling in a warzone). In fact, the "warrior cop" training industry is fucking lucrative. This Slate article even links to knife fighting courses which cops will never need. I wonder if there are statistics on how many dogs are killed by SWAT, which empirical evidence shows does not enhance policing in any measurable way. Tell me, what exactly do cops need full on tanks and 50 caliber sniper rifles for if those don't improve policing? Carthage (talk) 22:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
It shouldn't cost the taxpayers $500 per dog; it should cost the officer $500 per dog. Most shootings, of dogs or even of people, aren't clearcut "good" or "bad", but judgement calls where the officer could've really gone either way. Somehow, we need to 1) make the officer hesitate in those judgement calls, and 2) not make the cost so prohibitive that a good officer can't do his/her job when it really is required to fire the gun at the dog. CorruptUser 03:55, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
I answered this. It would never cost the officer, it would cost the police force, the people who pay the officer. You can't shave off a salary, that's impossible. And paying a police force per incident is like hiring mercenaries. I'm really not happy to inform you that you've arrived at the worst solution. Torrent (talk) 07:01, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

On the "Celebrate Pride or Else" mindset.[edit]

Warning icon orange.svg Warning: Nutpicking ahead!

Nuts on Spice Bazaar in Istanbul 01.jpg

Time Before Things Get Really Bad for Climate?[edit]

Maybe it's just the "climate anxiety" described in some articles that I'm having, but things are definitely not looking good for the environment in Canada. An important tributary in Alberta dried up just this past February, there's recent articles of Great Slave Lake in NWT having the lowest water levels ever recorded, and in my own city I've visibly observed water levels in the municipal river be exceptionally low compared to previous years in the last decade. Haven't even gone into detail yet on the exceptionally early wild fire season that has started in Canada. Despite all this, conservative provincial governments still want to expand oil drilling and water irrigation. I think I recall headlines saying the last full IPCC report from the UN reports 2060 as the time that profound effects from global warming will be most explicit and felt, though I'm sure there are newer articles giving closer dates. It's all a little bit dreary really. Impiricism (talk) 16:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I am starting to think we as the so-called Canadian public may need to abandon the focus on federal elections as the means for towards a ecologically sustainable society. We can turn our focus to municipal and provincial bodies, and more towards local grassroots organizations. We can establish penalties for externalities that negatively impact the environment, outlaw fossil fuel companies in province from receiving government subsidies, implement participatory economic policies, push for guaranteed housing, organize more unions, establish a universal basic income, establish policies to ensure a right to repair, and implement penalties on practices of planned obsolescence, etc.
Most importantly we should be ensuring a greater level of indigenous sovereignty over relevant tribal territory to restrict the extraction and alteration of natural resources without their say so from their traditional systems of governance, and organize cases for the violation of indigenous rights to land with international legal bodies when such sovereignty/consent is violated by the Canadian State or relevant corporations.
We may also want to put an end to oversea mining operations Canada is engaged with.
Neither Liberals, or Conservatives will support this. I am not even sure the Greens will. It may require that we focus our efforts in establishing new political organizations, push for participatory budgeting, etc. It’s is not as if the public is against implementing dramatic changes to our society to combat climate change, even miners and oil workers could be willing if they were provided a green job guarantee that implemented their skill sets and provided equal or greater pay/benefits. Federal level Politicians only care about maintaining their power, and they will avoid risky policies if it effects their chances for re-election. This is a product of the centralization of power, and is not a manner of simple moral failing, but how the system itself structured. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:24, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
So, as a green supporter, I will say the global oil economy is overblown but also not vital. Oil companies will make a huge stink about jobs if their projects don't go through, but their projects are generally construction enough masse and then maintenance by a few. So, what they know is the same as the 'concrete project,' where it looks really good on paper to hire a bunch of people to tear down a building, pour concrete, and build something else. It is not harmful to a construction business for an area to need a new building, or in the worst case scenario, a simple parking lot. I'm gonna sound like a boomer here, but the absolute Economy of construction doesn't mean anything in 3 to 5 years. And if we're going to put people who have actually spent their lives honestly in construction in the position of a promise of training a one time job that they might get beat out over for a maintenance job that they might get beat out over isn't inspiring. And the people big industries hire for oversight and maintenance jobs are not inspiring. It fucking sucks to need a construction job, nobody is addressing that, and it blows my fucking mind. Economics don't work without the workforce, and economics are so fucking reliant on them, but at some point when it hits peak efficiency, the workforce disappears. This isn't an anti AI argument or a pro coal mining argument. We build the highways and the oil rigs and the parking lots and skyscrapers, we dig out broken pipelines only when they break production by breaking. We work for business. The line of thinking is entirely turnaround labor, as if nobody should ever get a raise. Unless you just create building projects whether they matter or not, that goal to sustain the idea of 'working for working's sake' in which labor is it's own reward, undervalued labor and redundant projects are honestly just a really stupid way to spend resources. In order to prevent unemployment, over preventing poverty. It's the way it's going to be done. The promise of green jobs for people already established in hard labor jobs does not mean anything but 'oh no, I gotta fight for my job again.' Construction workers are not gonna suddenly flood the green engineer market. That's not a plan. Torrent (talk) 05:17, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
Now, I'm not Canadian, but from what I know of the situation [and economics/politics] is not that the oil industry 'creates lots of jobs' [I personally think they don't, or at least not as many as the Big Public thinks] but the fact they usually are a disproportionately large contributor to Govt coffers without them having to 'do'/'spend' much [which is tasty because it allows them to spend without having to tax people so much]. This is the 'resource curse' which coupled with the sheer size/natural wealth of Canada has led to an overly heavy economic dependence on extractives [with their short-termism] coupled with a perennial 'there's more where that came from' belief.
However, the crux of the issue on questions like this is how much of Canada's total 'carbon footprint' has been outsourced. Successive UKGovs have parroted repeatedly over the years how 'how well we've done in reducing emissions' without ever mentioning that the benchmark was 1990 and the country has hugely de-industrialised and much most of our 'dirty' production to the Far East - and the methods of production might be even worse ecologically as well as adding up the costs of shipping [but isn't on our books]. In this respect, it is perhaps a reasonable [but counterintuitive] policy for advanced nations like Canada/UK to accept some 'bad' industries to be reshored [steel, concrete, timber, electronics] so they can be done as 'greenly' as possible. In this case, this also means that yes, we do still need oil and to a lesser extent, coal. But Canada exports her crude but buys back from the USA refined POL. Why? Another bit of ecological legerdemain, so the refining costs are left in the south?
The other frankly, infuriating aspect of this whole debate is that the 'total cost of ownership' carbon-wise is rarely, if never discussed. Go on, buy an electric car, it's good for the planet... but is it? What about the more tons of carbon locked into the car, the electricity used, the building of infrastructure to support them [power plants aren't free] and finally, their scrapping after how many years they last. No business would ever make an investment decision on anything without these stats... but we are expected to. It's like all we give a toss about is the 'current spend' of carbon, not how much gets locked-in view the production and scrapping stages. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:15, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
So that would be a vote with your dollar free market capitalism ideal. And it just doesn't work that way. The American Capital system really reads like it wants you to go into debt so it can claim future capital to pay its own. Promise a manufacturer 80,000 for a big dumb truck, they can say they sold an 80,000 truck and your capital is promised to be whatever cost plus interest. It's speculative. So much value is speculative, credit cards are designed to build credit. Can you spend less than what it costs to have a credit card? It's not even horseshit, cause you could put that grainy turd into a fire and get a spark. The debt economy relies on debt. Austerity doesn't solve it, tarriffs don't prevent it, it's just a stupid thing we all have to work ourselves out of. Buying Electronic Vehicles is not our job or responsibility, and there are a lot of downsides, including a lack of charging stations, distance between charging stations, and a steady decline in charge versus distance (not the batteries anyone was promised, bad batteries from the manifacturer) that make the promise of a full ev A dream.I still think, if you are able to afford a big dumb truck, the hybrid is the answer. Did you know UPS runs a bunch of their trucks on natural gas? They consider is either compressed natural or liquid natural. Both of which sound a little stupid but they come from the same source. Renewable Natural Gas. Fuck everyone. Torrent (talk) 02:19, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
I'm fairly cynical about the whole 'personal responsibility' thing re: climate change, for I know the line 'carbon footprint' was coined by the ad people at the behest of those friendly folks at British Petroleum. And historical examples of no-penalty voluntary reduction schemes show that at best, they work a little [mainly on the middle classes] but it's never near enough. There's been countless examples of where responsibility has been fobbed off on us final consumers, rather than the producers or the state [most obviously with plastic recycling; making us donate our own time/labour to clean/sort/transport shite we never wanted in the first place for 'recyling' which normally does not even happen].
With EVs, I think they're part of the solution with transport emissions - to whit, for folks who live in suburbs-density locales in urban enviroments where mass transit isn't a viable option, barely ever make a round-trip of 75 miles and most importantly, have ready access to low-carbon electricity. It would also be suitable for other niche uses, such as small 'local delivery' vans in which much of the time it's sitting at the company depot [and charging]. However, we do need to sort out some quite serious issues even before we get to this point; such as such as 'product lifespan' [we'll only get 'trickle-down' EVs for poorer folks if they know a 10-year old EV is 'still good'], 'enforced standardisation' [such as charging plugs], the state to actively build a standardised public charging network [such as having all the charging companies use the same fucking app] and perhaps most critically, breaking open the 'black box' and allowing independents [or even skilled home mechanics] to fix their own EVs.
The 'renewable natural gas' you mention is known as normally 'biogas', produced as a byproduct from the rotting of organic matter. Drained off old landfills or produced deliberately in large plants, it can be considered fairly 'green' as said methane would have been produced normally and to a major extent, said waste cannot be avoided in the production of food and similar. However, the crux of the issue is whether the feedstock really is 'waste' - there's moves to start deliberately producing crops for this [which in my opinion is totally missing the point]. Similar can be said of the old coal power plants converted to burning wood; okay [I suppose] if it's simply consuming waste but not if they're fucking importing virgin Canadian logs to be shipped over to the UK for some 'off-budget' carbon emissions in the UK. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
Find a fill-up for biogas, and we'll be square on this argument. I know a lot of places to get blue rhino propane, where does one find the infrastructure to fuel a personal natural gas vehicle? In the best case, over 75 miles away from home? And that's the point, you can't have the consumer lead the infrastructure, that is a capitalist blind spot. Torrent (talk) 06:52, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes, it is a chicken/egg situation which often happens in capitalism - consumers won't buy X due to a lack of infrastructure, while companies won't build the infrastructure due to lack of demand. Sometimes a forward thinking company or two will 'invest in the future' thinking long-term, but esp in the Anglo world, they don't [because our companies are run by financiers, not true 'I have a dream' entrepreneurs]. This is closely allied to the 'path dependency' issue; that future decisions are made based on past actions re infrastructure, training etc - for example, EVs really came about because almost every location in the advanced world has an electrical connection.
Your gripe in fact shows part of the problem - the desire/expectation to have a omni-solution to all transport issues, when the answer is a myriad of solutions. Biogas 'does not scale' as a solution - there is insufficient 'natural' supply to warrant use by the general public. Fleet vehicles [such as delivery vans and buses] are more suitable for this because normally they operate out of a single [or perhaps a couple] of depots which could easily have their own supply laid-on from the biogas plant. But even then, there's times where the biogas makers have decided to use it for electricity generation rather than go through the palaver of trying to ship the gas to a consumer. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:52, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
look, I don't think there is a single solution, and I understand the allegation that I would be dumb and think if a solution might help it is what I believe,but to not solve the whole thing would be a worthless effort. That would be kinda accurate on me, but I'm always ready. Torrent (talk) 06:42, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Initiative/Primer: On Brain Draining the Autocracies[edit]

Here's something that the US hasn't been thinking of too much, but is there any way the US and allies can help in brain draining authoritarian regimes and snap experts back to reason and sense? Because if experts serve a dictator, it could seriously darken the future of humanity as a whole. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 19:52, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I would guess that it would be nearly impossible to outdo Putin's self-inflicted Russian brain drain: estimated hundreds of thousands to over a million young people[4] and at least 2500 scientists have fled.[5] During the Cold War, the West would not and then entice a few defectors, but never anything on this scale. The closed thing in Russian history approaching this was the exodus following the October Revolution and Russian Civil War. Bongolian (talk) 20:17, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
So the question now is, what can we do to entice these scientists to renounce their allegiance and naturalize? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 20:23, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
A Bloomberg op-ed on the subject [6] mentions that there are a few programs like France's "Programme PAUSE" in the Collège de France [7] designed for scientists and artists in exile, but they are often small. The Bloomberg article advocates that more should be done along these lines. The Putin brain drain might be one of the bigger ones in the Western industrial era so maybe some countries are caught off guard for all I know.
The United States is currently in a poor state to take advantage of this due to the significant pro-Russian influence and oh noes immigration! Chicken Littles in the Republican party. Apparently in April 28 2022, Biden wrote to Congress requesting a fast-track process for Russian scientists and engineers for 4 years, to be included in a Ukraine supplemental funding bill.[8] According to a Washington Post op-ed, [9] this ended up not making it in the bill due to Republican opposition. What a world of difference from the Operation PaperclipWikipedia days! BobJohnson (talk) 20:55, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
Next up, what does it take to brain drain via permanent emigration and naturalized citizenship from an autocratic country that isn't actively implementing a war, such as Russia's partner in crime, China? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 22:37, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
I think it's because Russia is no longer really seen as a 'first rank' nation scientific/engineering-wise, and a lot of the right-wingers give no value to the humanities, arts, literature etc so they don't really give a damn [they'd welcome an rogue oligarch with their loot-bags, mind]. Wait, scrub that. They don't give a damn, just like Putin doesn't give a damn losing them. I've been saying this since the invasion; that Putin is merely them 'through a darkened mirror', a land where they are merely more overt in their corruption, arrogance and hubris and the polite facade is even more threadbare. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:43, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
Do you think Xi will fall into the same trap of unabashed nationalism? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 22:44, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
China already is an unabashed nationalistic autocracy. However, Xi Jinping seems to actually value science and technology as a "soft power". So, it's not quite the same as long as Xi doesn't start invading countries like Putin did. (Right now, I don't see the signs with Xi that you saw with Putin for the decade before the invasion, but you never know).
Nonetheless, I did find a New York Times article suggesting that there was a bit of a brain drain from China in 2022.[10] For those who are concerned about China autocracy, or for those wanting to escape the horrible (and rather sexist to boot) work-life balance of China, many other countries do have some appeal. BobJohnson (talk) 23:32, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
Xi is a politically/nationalistically-biased technocrat at the helm of a still-growing empire via a 'party system', while Putin is a cynical, manipulative ex-spook in charge of a dying one via his own personal power. As a general rule, Putin has never given a toss about any form of 'development' of Russia; she is a more hollowed-out, rusted hulk than she was in 2000. Say what you will against Xi, but he has made a beeline for a myriad of infrastructure/development projects to 'build up China' for the socio-politico goals Xi and his allies in the CCP envision for China in the next say, 25 years. It is quite possible that like Stalin quipped back in the 1940s, Xi and Co are hoping Chinese 'brawn' [sheer numbers] can beat Western 'finesse' [a technological advantage], as well as a more laser-focus on key projects. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:49, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
But there's also the disastrous One-Child policy and the demographic time bomb ahead for China, including the hordes of spoiled "little Emperors". How will that affect China long term? And will India overshoot them if they relied on sheer numbers? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 23:55, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
'One Child' proved to be rather too successful a policy, and was widened to a two-child policy, and then to even a three-child one. It failed to pull the birthrates out of the plughole, but I suspect the issues are similar to the ones plaging the UK - housing is too fucking expensive/small for kids, we work too long hours, there's shit childcare provision and stuff like education is so expensive an ambitious family might want to have 'fewer eggs'. Chinese per-head productivity generally is fairly shit, which suggests there's a lot of low-hanging fruit to harvest to allow the Chinese economy to support a lot more seniors. There are also other ways to 'stem the decline'; for example there's something like 60 million in the 'Chinese dispora' of which Beijing could/does tempt to move back to China proper [Russia did similar in the 00s].
India has already surpassed them in raw numbers, but that's not everything - Xi and Co shall diligently note that the Japanese who humilated China in the 1930s were numerically less than them, the Russians who did in the 1800s were too and the damned British drug-dealers in the 1850s were like outnumbered something like 25:1 and they won. I personally suspect Beijing is more concerned with 'losing their technological edge' vs Delhi [perhaps with the assistance by the dastardly West] than anything as simple as simple demographics. In fact, some of younger, cynical technocrats might argue that having a bit smaller 'Chinese boat' might help it survive the travails of climate change, while a heavier 'Indian boat' may sink due to shortages etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:36, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
Almost every non-African country has a below replacement fertility rate,Wikipedia it's not a problem unique to China. Christopher (talk) 00:19, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Many of the developed countries of East Asia (Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan) stand out as being uniquely low even among the low birthrates almost everywhere. It's obviously not the whole story (as a lot of other countries without their unique issues come pretty close) -- the high cost of raising kids today is a huge factor, as is some *good* things (better health, better equality, less teen / "shotgun" births, etc). But I don't think it's coincidental that these countries are known for their shitty work/life balance and shitty treatment of motherhood/pregnancy from a career perspective, as well as some patriarchal society paradigms that are more stringent than other places. It seems to add an "edge" that tips the birthrate even lower than the already low norm. [11] China's One Child policy also contributed by normalizing the idea of a very small family within the culture. [12]
I don't think it is wise to blindly aim for "more babies plz". For a start, as noted by Karma, raw numbers aren't everything (if it was, Pakistan's economy would be well above the economy of the UK and France -- obviously not the case), and for another, many government incentive type programs that tried to reward "more babies plz" simply have not worked. That being said, personally, I think that these low birth rates are one of two major symptoms (the other being climate change) that show off a very significant structural flaw in the current global capitalism paradigm. A few countries have also polled to see what people's idea family size is, and it often is higher than the actual fertility rate (for instance, in America, the polling average was 2.7 compared to the actual fertility rate of 1.6.)[13] My postulate would be that if the cost of children, both in terms of money (including adjunct things like housing and education) and time, could be brought down, in many countries you might actually see greater fertility than you do now, above replacement rate perhaps. Not *big* numbers, of course (you really don't need *big* numbers anyways), but better than now. It's "easier said than done" because even in countries with much better policies than the US or East Asia, it's still expensive to do things like buy a bigger house, feed, and educate a kid, which is stuff harder to make policy for (without *much* more of a structural change to the underlying system). But family friendly government policies probably explains at least some of the difference between France's 1.8 birth rate and South Korea's 0.9. BobJohnson (talk) 01:31, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

This issue was noted as far back as the early 70s by the American journalist/author Hedrick Smith on the USSR; that by this point the Soviet population had basically stopped growing, which meant any further economic developments had to be achieved through intensive [ie improving productivity etc] rather than extensive [ie more factories] growth.

Anyway, he highlighted then the main 'issues' he felt was stopping urban Soviets having more kids [like BobJ's point, their 'ideal family size' was 2/3 too] and his answers are... well, kinda generic - 'lack of home space', 'lack of childcare provision', 'lack of child-friendly environments', 'inflexibility of employers regarding childcare duties', 'career penalties for maternity leave', 'general Soviet life unfriendly for childcare' and finally, 'overwhelming official/societal pressure for women to be workers to the detriment to childrearing'.

All of these apply to the UK too.

In the UK, the crux of the issue is that we are run by lazy financiers who don't want to take account of human needs [like having kids] and know the cost of everything but the value of nothing - a woman in their view is nothing more than a producer and consumer and a child is 'a drain on the state'. In the USSR, it was a similar issue; their 'women's liberation' was mainly a wheeze to get women into the workforce but improving the SoL of said women [like making being a working mother easier] didn't ever feature in any Five-Year Plan.

Throwing a little bit of money here or there isn't really going to cut through major, ingrained structural problems. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:24, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

White Christian Nationalist Movement: Threat Level[edit]

This is a follow-up concerning the current state of US democracy and the looming threat of white Christian nationalism. How severe of a threat are they to the US and the rest of the world, and should we be concerned to take action? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 03:56, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

They have their plans clearly laid out for all to see https://www.project2025.org/ 2001:67C:2628:647:9:0:0:2BB (talk) 07:10, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
I think the "world" bit is easier because what is happening in the United States is in many ways mirroring what is happening globally. It seems like that there has been an allergic reaction (deservedly, TBH) within the developed economies to the post-Reagan/Thatcher "neoliberalism consensus". The more racist side of these folks have retreated into a populist, reactionary "far-right" whose chief concern seems to be whining about the Other, rejecting globalism, and musing about the good old days. Since this is an inward / backward isolationist looking movement, not a revolutionary one looking to conquer and expand (as far as I can tell), I see an American Christian nationalist takeover (should that happen) as less of a threat to other nations and more something that will continue to erode the United States' global influence in the world. Something that, I might add, has pretty much already happened in the last 30 years (the US still wields big influence, but is no longer *the* influence like it was from, say, post-WWII to the 1990s or so.) One interesting thing about the United States is that, from my perspective, the "far-right" side (Trumpism) is heavily elder-tilted, something I don't see in other similar reactionary European far-right movements as much. As the youth in the US are rejecting the Religious Right within institutional Christianity as well at the moment, this makes me hopeful that once the US gets away from electing octogenarians for president, the threat of Christian nationalism will recede.
Domestic wise, it's a pretty tough call. I think the governorship of Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott could be a good template for a future "what if GOP is elected?". One can summarize their governorship as one that goes out of their way to make laws to shit on minorities and the opposition as much as possible, along with many performative symbolic shit for the Fox News sect (much of which is later struck down in the courts). As is common for states with GOP governors these days, both governors have had their "too far" moments when the party splintered, due to "Heil Hitler" / 4chan shitpost-fascist chums gaining influence within the party in some way, or scandals ala the Moms for Liberty three-way.
Texas and Florida are both growing states, but they also both have some fundamental structural / economic issues that loom on the horizon. These states (especially Florida) probably need to worry a lot more about climate change than, say, Maine or Oregon. Certain infrastructure, like Texas's electrical grid, is... not great. Florida's having a home insurance crisis due to the insurance industry actually understanding that climate change is not a hoax and adjusting prices heavily upward accordingly. Both DeSantis and Abbott have been happy to ignore the "big issues" in favor of the Fox News circus, occasionally (eg the Texas GOP vs. wind power) even getting in the way. And there are two industries that are definitely being damaged in these states due to the reactionary GOP posturing: the medical industry (especially maternal care, due to abortion) and education. A successful Project 2025 style civil service purge, where competent experts are replaced with GOP stooges, would make this sort of circus even worse. BobJohnson (talk) 17:49, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
How severe and how large is their voting bloc then? And they themselves overreport their numbers, so there's that too. But are they a major threat given the 2024 elections? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 03:28, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
The Republican party is still more of a "big tent" party; not all people who vote for the GOP are Christian nationalists. But, NPR did report on a PRRI/Brookings survey [14] that 21% of the Republican party was Christian nationalist, with 33% sympathizing with their views.
The problem is that there are plenty of other strains of the Republican party that also embrace authoritarianism these days. For instance, a significant chunk of the purportedly "libertarian" side of the GOP (usually seen in the business community and among those with big money, your "born on third base and think they hit a triple" type) has drifted in recent years more towards an authoritarian capitalismWikipedia stance. Money unfortunately is king in American politics, so although libertarians-cum-authoritarians are a small percentage, and have proved not to be popular when put up for a vote (see: Vivek Ramaswamy), they still seem to have outsized influence behind the scenes.
So, "are Christian nationalists a major threat?" Sure, and the biggest threat here is that they provide the backbone of the vote to get a bunch of corrupt assholes elected and in power. Trump was elected once before, and the 2024 election is a coin flip. The GOP looks heavily like Viktor Orbán and Fidesz these days in many ways -- Orbán pretty much used the same strategy (good old days reactionary religious posturing ) to successfully institute an "illiberal Christian democracy", the last word of course being a bit of doublespeak. The irony here is that, unlike Orbán from what I know (and actually in contrast to the religiously observant Joe Biden), anyone who has followed politics knows that Trump really doesn't give a fuck about Christianity at all. But he's just as corrupt as Orbán and Fidesz, that's for sure, and is willing to pander to the shallow needs of the Christian nationalist crowd for votes. BobJohnson (talk) 13:59, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
Two words: Machine Politics.
White Christian Nationalism has built itself a political machine within the Republican Party [since the late 70s] which has become so factionally powerful that it controls a butt-load of low/mid level positions which grants them an effective veto on any wannabe Republican politico anywhere. To these people, 'Christian' is just another identity, and are happy to fall behind anyone [including Trump] as long as they mouth the right words and grant them as much power as possible to build Dominionism within the country. They generally don't give a fuck about any form of economics [mainly because a lot of them are old/retired/rich enough], which is great news for the faux-libertarian 'corporatocracy' such as in extractives, dirty energy, real estate, agriculture, opaque financial operators and any org who's business model is dependent on fucking over their employees, customers and/or the country at large - who shall fund them heavily. They then manage to slither into power by using huge amount of negative campaigning to convince wavering 'moderate Republicans' that all Democrats are evil and must be stopped at all costs.
They are a serious threat as long as said 'moderate Republicans' allow the above to fuck them over on a daily basis. Similar can be said to the 'small-c tory' types in the UK who constantly bitch about everything being crap but then slithers off to vote for the cretins, loons and corrupt fuckwits because 'Labour will be even worse'. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:36, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Which sucks. Torrent (talk) 02:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes. But I also have a solution - entryism. If a load of sane people joined their local Republican Party and got their friends to do similar, they would then be able to outvote the cutist machine in the selection of local officials etc, and thus sanity [well, what passes as sanity in the Republicans] can return. If you live in a deep-Republican area, I would also advocate/support Independent candidates [ideally, sane/respected local figures who focus on bread/butter issues] and getting the local Democrats to stand aside to give them a decent run against the loons. Lastly, I would advocate leftist/centrists should also construct their own political machines which have actual funding and run all year round, not simply when election day comes a'calling. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
That is beautiful, but get into a coffee circle. Torrent (talk) 02:40, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Thought Experiment: The Gigachurch[edit]

This thought experiment is just based on suggestions I have heard from others over the continued consolidation of churches in the United States, as regular churches dwindle and megachurches continue to consolidate and get bigger. Eventually, do you think all American churches, regular and mega, will consolidate into one single gigachurch, how would a unified gigachurch function and look like in structure and operations compared to megachurches and regular churches, and what it will mean for the United States? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 03:35, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

What is wild to me, is somebody has always already written a song about it. There's no jobs in the city Torrent (talk) 06:17, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────It seems unlikely to me unless there is some overriding national authoritarian orthdoxy. From the book The End of Protestantism: Pursuing Unity in a Fragmented Church (page 78):

Ironically, “mergers and foundings sharply raise the likelihood of schism.”* Efforts to reunite the church can go wrong and sow further and deeper divisions. Ironically again, schism can reduce the chance of schism, though only briefly: “one year after a founding or merger, rates of schism are five times higher than they are one year after a schism.” Pursuing unity or enforcing uniformity may be the quickest way to destroy whatever unity already exists. In some cases, consolidation and centralization can lessen the possibility of schism.” At times, it is the very effort to prevent schism that causes it.

Bongolian (talk) 07:04, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

If anything, churches are probably driven by money, and megachurches are definitely driven solely by cold hard cash. So how do you think the almighty dollar would influence the current trajectory of churches? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 08:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
Briefly, no. Just imagine the Catholic Pope saying to the Christian diaspora (45,000 Christian denominations across the world), " Aw, you protestants were right all along, let's forget the whole thing." UncleKrampus (talk) 20:52, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
In short, the 'Gigachurch' wouldn't work because the business model of a megachurch would not scale that far.
Megachurches are built on charismatic authority [Weberian term] of the pastor(s) within it, and much of their product is not the message, but the 'show' given - in this case, psychologal manipulation of the crowd to 'feel the Holy Spirit' all together at the same time in the same physical location. Yes, you have TV/radio/podcasts etc, but it simply does not work half as well because you don't get emotionally swept up in the crowd's emotions and your sense of self is aborbed into the group [this is why fundie pastors led the charge against Covid lockdowns; they know much of their business relies on the 'personal touch' and feared an elongated absence from the endorphin-hits would cause their flock to drift away]. But that's the issue; there's only so many services a pastor can do in one day, building/maintaining a 2,000+ seater-venues is expensive and not every area would have enough donating congregants to make it economically viable.
There's ways to jump this cramp, of course; for example the old 'touring preacher' model [qv: Billy Graham] in which his big-tent meetings helped build up a national [or even international] following which then supported his radio/TV shows etc [though he preached that he was a suppliment for their flesh/blood pastor, not a replacement]. Another model which is being tried in the current era is a multi-church one; where the 'daughter' churches show the pastor's syndicated show from the 'parent' church. Problem is, that cuts off the emotional flow between the preacher and audience; whipping up the crowd is harder and they don't have their finger on the local pulse [good public speakers learn how to 'read' the audience and tailor their message, mannerisms, tone etc to help fit]. Again, some churches try to get past this cramp by making it 'hybrid'; that the 'daughers' will have their own pastor who acts as a kind of warm-up act to the main pastor etc - but this them means the church needs to find not only another charismatic pastor but also one who is doctrinally effectively identical to the main one.
Which is where the model comes under strain. Charismatic pastors are... well put politely are often 'of strong personality and will' and it makes collaboration with possible 'rivals' difficult to impossible. As in, the 'junior pastors'. Demarcation issues arise - the junior will often try to make their area 'theirs', while the senior will continue seeing it all as 'thiers' to meddle in as they see fit. If they're in phyisically different locations, the senior will often end up trying to micromanage from afar, perhaps even start fearing that the junior is planning to 'steal' the congregation or even usurp the whole church from under them. This is assuming there is zero doctrinal or even 'style' disputes...
Most importantly, not everyone wants to go to the 'same style of church', nor do they all believe the same things or have the same needs. It's like asking why aren't all the restaurants in the country be owned by the same chain. Religion is a 'personal service' [perhaps the most personal], and thus one where the individual 'human touch' will always be important [which is also why being a rabbi/imam/pastor/etc might be the most 'AI-proof' occupation ever]. Which in fact one of the most common criticisms of the megachurch; that they are simply too impersonal to have this touch [I would guess a pastor can 'effectively' personally pastor at most 100, which means the megachurch attendant only has a parasocial relationship with their pastor] and as such rapidly devolve into becoming Jesus-themed infotainment and political adverts to tickle the fancies of their well-heeled, low-maintenence congregation. Even the Southern Baptists deride megachurches as 'triggering false spiritual highs', only created by showmanship and 'crowdfeels'. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
so basically, you are are saying this is an improbable concern, because a man will die and that could free a culture. if I have read that wrong, please. Torrent (talk) 02:48, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
In very short; it won't happen because the model does not scale that far, too many preachers are egotistical and there's always going to be a significant % of believers who genuinely want the 'personal touch'. Not sure how that involves people dying, though. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
let's just say Kim Jung il died, but it isn't a sudden or healthy reaction for a country based in holy dictatorship. Torrent (talk) 02:30, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Part 2: On Vanquishing Bad Churches[edit]

Since the previous consensus is that a unified gigachurch isn't likely to form in the US, now what can be done as to prevent the damage from or even shut down the greedy megachurches, lying cretinists, and the endless circus of the Religious Right bozos? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 10:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
That really is up to the American Christian community; the biggest harm the bozos are causing is to themselves. It's well documented that: A) American churches are overall in decline in the last 30 years; B) politics and extremism are a big part of the reason for this, and C) the decline is more noticeable among the young and liberal, with the former making many church congregations "time limited". Essentially, the greed, scandals, politics, and extremism within the American church community (more the megachurches and Religious Right than anything else, though certainly other scandals like Catholic children abuse played a part too) have transformed America from a thoroughly religious country into one that is just as secular as Europe in many pockets. Way to go, Religious Right! BobJohnson (talk) 13:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Arab Jews: An interesting topic with little information[edit]

I have been trying to read about Arabs who practice Judaism as I think that the concept of Colored Jews (I believe that is the term) is interesting. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.

Note: I hold no hate for Jews or Israel existing. That said I believe that both Jews and Palestinians can live side by side if leaders would get their heads out of their religious nationalistic asses. Religious nationalistic beliefs get innocent people killed. --Trans Fem Agenda 16:51, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Arabized Jews.
Basically, outside of the Arabian peninsula, there aren't a lot of ethnic Arabs (beyond general intermarriage and all that), but rather, millions of people who "converted" ethnically to Arab. The Syrians, Egyptians, Libyans, etc, are actually made up of various ethnic groups, but they've basically adopted Arabic as their mother tongue and all that. That's actually the biggest reason for the Persian/Arab conflict; Persians have always viewed themselves as the guardians of civilizations, and it was the barbarians from the west (the Arabs, not "The West") who conquered them, whereas the Arabs despise the Persians for not giving up their culture, language, identity, etc. CorruptUser 20:14, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Given that races are statistical constructs from a modern perspective, one might ask what you think an Arab Jew is? Most Jews in Israel are not "practicing Jews." It is, for them, an ethnic identity. That is a "because I say so" identity. Arabs are not a race. They are just folks that live in North Africa and west Asia and share cultural attitudes. UncleKrampus (talk) 21:38, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Judaism is classed as an "ethno-religion" that one can convert to. If someone had an arab parent or both parents were arab, and the mother was a follower of Judaism, then their child would be considered Jewish. Also, races are not, really "statistical" constructs. The whole point in refuting racialism was that racial groupings are not statistically meaningful. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:35, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
Anything can be made statistically meaningful. Race is not a scientific construct. Statistics is something else. Science is expected to make sense. Statistics is just a group of theories of probabilistic modeling. Races, like the rainbows are real in a very limited sense.UncleKrampus (talk) 13:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
You can just say you never took a stats class before and save us the howler of “ Anything can be made statistically meaningful” —- no, not if the standards for acceptable margins of error, statistical significance, and effect sizes have anything to say about it. This is like saying any treatment can be made effective. Do you think when a meta-analysis reports that a treatment is not statistically or clinically significant from the placebo control they are reporting that there is a statistically meaningful difference between the treatment and the control group? No, honey. That’s being illiterate in statistics. Alarming for a community that is about promoting scientific literacy. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Maybe I'm being too charitable here, but to be fair with Krampus, he said "statistically meaningful" (a term that is not common on the literature so maybe he was criticizing the abuse of statistics by some people), not "statistically significant" (a very common term that means p-value<α, where α is usually 0.05). GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 20:08, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes you are being charitable, but I am not proud and I do accept charity. I have a degree in mathematics and I know enough to know that the models are abstractions that we do not always accept when they generate cognitive dissonance, which, by the way many here seem to experience without being aware of it. Sorry sweetie.UncleKrampus (talk) 22:11, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I didn't know you have a degree in mathematics (I assume Sorta didn't know either), and from now on, I'll assume you're a lot better on the subject than me (which is not very difficult, but whatever). Still, I think I understood your point, you were saying that statistics can be abused and/or ignored based on what people believe. That being said, I don't think the backfire effect is always true. Not saying that I'm 100% rational or everything but to quote Keynes (ok, the quote isn't his) "When the facts change, I change my mind". I've changed my mind on many subjects that I once hold very firm positions, and I expect to change many times in the future as I am confronted with evidence. This is an interesting conversation (IMO far more interesting than demographics of the I/P conflict), but the three of us derailing the thread now, so I'll stop now. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 22:35, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Don't be, you were quite correct, I think. Even sorta was more or less accurate. Social science buffs depend upon the idea that statistics is a way to see the truth. Mathematicians see it as removed from a posteriori knowledge, and, a pure form of knowledge, but that is a little too incoherent for me. I would say that statisticians think it is the art of making numerical conjectures. We use statistics to make educated guesses. That's good.UncleKrampus (talk) 22:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
it's kind of a Harry Potter house thing. Anyone is allowed to convert to Judaism, but the tenets matter to orthodoxy. It's like, you can join a Catholic family, but you're not getting off with an unbaptised child. Non practicing is fine and included, but it's also not fine. It's not that different to me with judaism. It IS ethnically tied, but it is so cultural that I just can't buy it as an ethnicity at large. Would an Arab Muslim be held to a different standard? I worked with a Pakistani Muslim and he brought his family's leftovers to the break room the day Ramadan started. What a fucking cool thing to just do. Was he Muslim? Well, I made sure I was in the break room any time he had to run his socks under water before prayer, I've seen worse done at a sink. Torrent (talk) 03:17, 22 May 2024 (UTC) Torrent (talk) 02:55, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
There is so much kindness and humility in any religion that wants to exist, and it works so much better than distrust and exclusion. As an atheist, kindness and humility is not suspect. it's just how we all get by. Torrent (talk) 03:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel
https://jewishcurrents.org/our-white-supremacy-problem
https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/racism-in-israel-some-jews-are-more-equal-than-others-28109
?
KarmaPolice (talk) 10:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
The timeline I’ve got for this thing which I have no stake in yet like any modern major jerk have opinions of (and please, mods please smash this if it is pure flame bait but I ask only that ye not banhammer me) is that:
Artificius (talk) 05:03, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
There do exist people who identify as both Arab and Jewish, but they are few and far between. Carthage (talk) 08:17, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
It's quite amazing how, rather than owning up to a fuck-up, G Man just decides to hide this entire thing behind a collapse. Carthage (talk) 12:34, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
i collapsed it to improve readability. to be fair, i did take this discussion a bit off topic, and it took up more than half of the thread because of the lengthy replies.
anyway, i gave up (just like cory apparently did) because i didn't want to keep dragging the conversation on forever. it's evident that we've reached an impasse. my mind has not changed, and i'm not going to change anyone's mind. consequently, rather than just going around in circles forever, we'll just have to agree to disagree for now. The G (talk) 18:39, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
You were debunked a multitude of times, and are now hiding the thread so less people are exposed to posts debunking the misinformation provided by someone who admits to have never read a single book from an academic publisher on this topic. Your mind hasn’t changed because you didn’t come to the conversation to have your mind changed. You have established yourself as a someone who contradict expert viewpoints. You have thrown the very idea of rational skepticism out the window, refusing to engage with the empirical evidence. If the “impasse” is acknowledging palestinians as a distinct ethnic group, or that there existed Jewish Palestinians. I don’t know what to tell you. Motivated reasoning is going to kick no matter what I say. Even with your changed goalposts, I scored. You are really ill equipped and ill informed on this issue. I even explained the nuance of acknowledging many of the oldest Jewish settlements as being arguably without fault to the settlers themselves due to their very real status as political refugees. This is still reconcilable with seeing the Palestinians as a colonized people. Political and Labour Zionists still contributed to this, and are not completely without fault. You can describe this conflict as a complex of interplay of European antisemitism, colonization, and political forces pushing mass relocation of their Jewish population onto the land of non-consenting Palestinians. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:43, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
Hell, you can even acknowledge the role of religious antisemitism, and the motivations of pan-Arabic nationalism in all of this too. It also be worth acknowledging the heavy American Evangelical influence to desiring that Israel is in control of Jerusalem. The way that Israel can work as a advantageous economic and militaristic ally for the US in the Middle East. Said Pan-Arabic nationalists who have a vested interest in supporting HAMAS, etc. This is a deeply convoluted issue. Not helped by denying the very real history of Zionism self-identifying a settler colonial project since its very early days. I am not interested in white washing this shit, various Palestinian factions have done horrendous shit too. I still think the more powerful, more stable actor with the exceedingly higher death-toll in all of this holds the greater responsibility solely because they are the only faction with the stability and power to do so. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:56, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The Election is on![edit]

Sunak has called a snap election in the UK; Thurs, 4th July 2024.

I've set up a draft page for the election https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Draft:2024_United_Kingdom_general_election Idea being; if everyone adds to it during the campaign [with refs please], I will then review and make it fit for mainspace afterwards. Thanks in advance. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:26, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

It feels a bit symbolic that Sunak was drenched by a downpour while announcing the election. Quite apart from the unplanned background music. ScepticWombat (talk) 17:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
That music was planned. Just not by CPHQ...
In other news, the talking heads on LBC are predicting a Labour majority of 50-60. I think this is going to come down to a) level of tactical voting, b) how much Reform run, c) how 'suppressed' the vote is by the summer stuff going on and d) how bad the 'Gaza sore' is to Labour. The fact the Unis will be out I think will nullify itself; it might diffuse a very anti-Tory vote from a few [perhaps] marginals and disenfranchise folks not registered to vote at 'home' [though this can be sorted by a big advance postal ballot push] but it also means a lot of students will be in places like the Shires which might prove a resource that can be tapped to help with canvessing etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:10, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, the summer recess will potentially play against the Tories since they can’t rely on the “on campus voting ban” to suppress the student vote. They’re probably still hoping that their voter ID law might give them a crucial edge in very close races, though.
And the short campaign is probably also to forestall any (further/formal?) collaboration between Labour and the LibDems to further magnify Tory losses by not attacking each other and ensuring that the party with the best chance of beating the Tories in a particular constituency will not be hampered by a split vote, and thus encourage tactical, anti Tory voting.
I also agree that Reform UK presents an important uncertainty: If they eat into the Tory vote, the results could be truly disastrous for the Tories (especially if combined with anti Tory tactical voting). But there are a couple of asterisks here: Are the people who’ve said in opinion polls that they’ll be voting Reform UK actually defecting Tory voters? And if they are indeed former (potential) Tory voters, will they actually end up voting Reform UK, even if that risks a Tory seat going Labour/LibDem? ScepticWombat (talk) 18:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
I've long bitched that Mandelson has in effect moved into Starmer's head, but in this case it's a good thing - for the Kennedy-Blair 'cease fire' in '97 was part of the reason for the Tory wipeout. It also helps that there's basically zero straight LD/Labour fights [I think the only one is Sheffield Hallum, Clegg's old seat]. Having done lots of reading on every GE since 1992 for RW, I think Davy must rule out a coalition with the Tories or Labour [but say they're open to ad-hoc arrangements] but also state another vote for PR isn't going to be the 'price' they demand for 'collaboration'. In return, I believe Starmer is going to need to make a 'people of the left, please lend me your votes' pitch and cherry-pick a totemic couple of policies which appeal to Greens/socialists/etc while being fairly honest that while yes, Labour is hardly appealing to them they're a damn sight better than the Tories. However, I seriously doubt he'd do the latter as he's basically been shouting at me to go fuck myself since becoming leader.
With Reform voters, from the looks of it they are almost solely the old Farage-era UKIP vote - the ones which 'lent' their votes to the Tories in '17 and '19 due to Brexit. I'm actually interested to see how strongly Tice and co are going to push this, and in response how rightwards Sunak will lean in to 'accommodate' them - I suspect that while yes, chanelling Braverman over immigration, othering and woke might save a clutch of Rustbelt seats, it very well might sicken enough in the Shires and 'Cameronian' suburbs to bolt to Lab/LDs. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:36, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

If there was a 'None of the above (candidates)' option on the ballot paper the results might be interesting (as with getting fewer votes than the Official Monster Raving Party). Anna Livia (talk) 20:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Sunak not only got soaked but also got trolled during his announcement with anti-Brexiteer Steve Bray blasting the song "Things Can Only Get Better" from beyond the security barrier.[17] Some have speculated that the earlier than expected election date is because Tories have come to the conclusion that things will not get better before the election deadline in January. Bongolian (talk) 02:32, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
I think it’s absolutely the reason for the snap election that this is the “least bad” time for the Tories and it’s likely that things would get even worse for them, if they’d waited.
Right now, the Tories can at least pretend that they’ve “beaten inflation”, and, due to the season, some voters aren’t in the “heating or eating” dilemma that might fuel yet more eagerness to stick it to the Tories.
The water companies are only going to keep increasing their prices and pouring shit into the rivers and oceans, so there’s no improvement in sight on that front either, quite the opposite in fact. And since even their latest promises of tax cuts didn’t move the polls, the Tories’ political ammo pouch is basically empty as it is. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
One good personal good thing. Expat UK voters have finally got our right to vote back!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, nothing good 'seems to be sticking' for the Tories - they've been blaring out their Greatest Hits for a year now and the polls are stuck. My guess is what has happened is what I warned Grant Shapps about in 2017; that a political party needs to avoid becoming hated - shown in this case by the fact perhaps the majority of the people have quit listening to them. I think they did want another giveaway in Sept/Oct, but the sounds from the IMF etc about them being in effect unaffordable [well, even more than the last ones] and this spooked them.
The other reason is I suspect the Conservatives chose now is the 'Gaza factor'. My fag-packet tells me that 'Muslims' [I hate lumping people into demographics, but you have to for some extent in conversations like this] make up more than 10% of the electorate in at least 85 seats, traditionally vote Labour by about 70% and quite a lot are concentrated in Rustbelt seats. If say, a third of these ditch from Labour... that's worth at least 1,300 votes per seat in Labour/Tory fights.
This leads me to discussing hat-man. Galloway's 'Workers Party' on the surface appears to be a 'socialist' splinter from Labour [actually mainly a cut-out for the Stalinist splinter from the CPGB]... but if you actually read their manifesto etc [yay, lucky me] you'll spot that their main Venn overlap is in fact with Reform [anti-woke, anti-establishment, 'patriotic' and populist] which means they're more a threat to the working-class Tory flank too. This leads to two questions; a) how strongly with 'the Muslims' does the WP become associated with and b) does Tice tacitly come to an 'arrangement' where there's no seat where both WP and Reform stand?
Lastly, I've been seeing Communist posters about recently, apparently from the 'Revolutionary Communist Party'. Anybody else seen them? KarmaPolice (talk) 10:02, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
I saw one the other day. Which flavour of Communist is the RCP? Have such posters been seen in Tooting? (Obscure Brit joke) Anna Livia (talk) 18:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Trots, it seems.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/66095/revolutionary-communists-are-plotting-a-comeback
The “Gaza effect” doesn’t sound implausible to me, now you mention it. But damn, I’d forgotten about Galloway and his nonces. I really hope no one who’s actually on the left gets sucked into his cesspool by mistake (i.e. not bothering to actually check the party’s views and just going by sound bites and slogans).
Still, I’m pretty doubtful as to whether Galloway’s voters would’ve actually considered Labour as an alternative. Like Reform, it seems that the WP goes full on with the “anti establishment” rhetoric/conspiracy theories, as already mentioned. But while there is a wing of the Tories that very clearly overlaps with some of this Reform nonsense (e.g. Braverman and Badenoch), which at least mean they’re competing on Reform’s turf, I don’t really see a similar situation with Labour and the WP. This is why I don’t see WP as much of a threat to Labour. Oh, and I doubt that, even if they agree to a “non aggression pact”, WP and Reform will get any seats (possibly Galloway might, if he’s popular enough in his constituency, but that’s probably about it).
Not in the UK so I don’t really get to see election posters and thus cannot contribute to the question of Communist ones. Anyone voting Communist in the UK in July was probably not going to vote for a viable candidate, though. However, I have seen some new Communist parties in other countries in Europe, as well as a bit of noise from those Communist parties that survived the Cold War. But it seems they all remain Lilliputian fringe parties with barely more voters than members (if they’re even able to get on the ballot). ScepticWombat (talk) 12:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
The 'Gaza effect' is also a risk on the left-wing flank of Labour too; as seen in the locals where quite a few defected to the Greens [though this is simply a resumption of the general 'left bleed-out' from Labour since '10, which in the Ashdown/Kennedy era had been to the LDs]. Like you, I don't think WP is that much a threat on this manner to Labour [or more correctly, no more a threat than the UKIP/Reform threat was/is] because as a rule we socialists know all about that slimy carpetbagger and perhaps more importantly, the likes of Corbyn and Momentum have stiffed hat-man's approaches. I don't believe either Reform or WP getting any seats [hat-man only won due to Labour not contesting Rochdale], which is why Toad has declined to stand again. Tice has just now committed to running a Reform candidate in all non-NI seats; which now means Sunak has about two weeks to work out how to 'deal' with this [the 7th is the deadline to withdraw]. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
I must confess, though, that I do feel a bit uneasy about the kind of Labour landslide that the polls have long predicted. Not because I feel sorry for the Tories or subscribe to something like the frankly mental logic of some in the USA Democratic leadership that “We need a strong right wing opposition party” for democracy to be healthy.
What worries me is the kind of leadership that Starmer has espoused when he and his wing became dominant within the Labour Party. His notion seems to be that there is essentially no room for internal debate or opposition (at least if this is on the left). If Starmer gets to run the UK with a whopping majority and those kind of attitudes, I’m sure glad I’m not a UK citizen (especially one that doesn’t particularly like or agree with Sir Keir Starmer).
Of course, it could very well be that Starmer the PM leads differently from Starmer the Labour leader, or that he’s “only” targeting “the left”, but I just don’t see him as a man that can be easily trusted with power. Especially not the kind that an overwhelming parliamentary majority will give him in a UK political system that has few other checks and balances beyond Parliament itself. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:17, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
However, it's notoriously difficult to project polling into actual seats; I've seen recent projections that have Labour sitting anywhere from a Feb '74 [Labour minority] to 1997 [huge landslide] results. I've also seen that there's upto about 20% mismatch between polling/voting - not just lying to the questioner, but tactical voting, finding desired party not standing in seat, not voting at all etc. They then simply extrapolate using census data etc, which can throw the result if those ratios are wrong [qv, 2017. Under-30s turnout much higher than projected].
Starmer - I fear - is going to fall into the 'you have nowhere else to go' fallacy which has been played against left-wingers for a century [or even worse, 'there are no votes on the left' one]. Which is why I wholeheartedly welcome the rise of the Greens; I am hoping it will show quite graphically that no, Labour's left flank does need to be protected... because we do have somewhere else to go [ie the Greens turn out to be Labour's Reform] KarmaPolice (talk) 14:51, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
How true do you think the rumours that Sunak called the election because the 'loonies' in the party were coming close to triggering a vote of confidence in him? KarmaPolice (talk) 11:27, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
I got a friend in London who says Tories wana Un-drop the writ. (which, if true, is hilarious since even if its legally possible, it'll buy them what, 4-5 months?) Revolverman (talk) 20:29, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────slate gave him a royal roasting with this one: "In a symbolic move, Sunak scheduled the election for July 4, a date synonymous with British failure." [18] The G (talk) 21:47, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Good grief, now the Tories are trotting out ”national service”. That’s when you know they are just keeping up appearances and have already resigned to being trounced in any but the most diehard gammon pensioner landlord constituencies. Quite apart from all of the “rats leaving the sinking ship”-resignations, of course. ScepticWombat (talk) 16:57, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
We truly are at the 'lob crap onto the wall and see what sticks' stage of the election, and it's not even been a week! Even on the objective level of being a policy, it's shit; '30k volunteers' for the military [for a year], everyone else has forced-volunteers for a weekend a month [so 24 days in total] 'helping' other orgs. It takes about 10 months to bring someone remotely 'fighting fit' [assuming they're already in a educational/emotional/physical condition to do Basic] which means unless you're gonna then discharge them into the reserves it's a relative waste of effort. And you know what the others will be used for? Free labour. I forsee these people being used to empty bedpans, clean road verges, fish crap out of ponds and make police officers cups of tea.How is that going to build 'community spirit'? Or 'provide training for later life' [wait, what was school meant for then?] I've worked in the voluntary sector before, and truth be told unskilled voluntary labour is shit, and is only really welcome when it's that or nothing.
I am not inherently against this concept [I more favour building up our reserves and establishing a 'Civil Reserve' to increase the country's resiliency] but as you point out, this one is to appeal to the Alf Garnets of this world. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
I’m not categorically against conscription either, btw, and live in one of the countries that never rescinded it.
The major argument for it in my neck of the woods has traditionally been that having “citizens in uniform” is a potential democratic check on some of the risks of having a wholly “professional” army which might start pursuing its own priorities (incl. ideas about the army’s role in society). I’ll admit that this is one argument in favour of conscription that I’ve always thought had some merit.
In addition, alternative service has been available for decades here, so no one is actually forced to serve in the military against their will, even if “their number comes up” (a friend of mine basically worked as a roadie at a rock concert venue for his stint).
Still, the UK has generally had little of such a tradition and this version sounds outright absurd, even on its own terms. And I agree that should the Tories somehow both win the election and implement this nonsense, it will probably be something like a postmodern version of corvéeWikipedia labour. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:56, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Gratitude doesn't work[edit]

“If you’ve been doing the “Gratitude” exercise you’ve found out that if you really focus your attention, you create your emotional state and you create it to be whatever you want it to be. I just give that “Gratitude” exercise as repetition, so that you can see, “Yeah, at any moment I can change my emotional state, shift the point of view I see things from and I create a whole different emotion.””

I know I posted from that site with that Gary guy before but this is more about the practice of gratitude. The post above is from a larger segment about how we can create emotions by just making commitments and that we feel as we do now and suffer because of automatic programs we pick up through life. Essentially saying if your commitment is strong enough you can be happy no matter what happens.

But I digress, I generally have a bone to pick with gratitude because the practice seems iffy to me. I know there is supposed to be a lot of science behind it but I have to wonder how reliable that data really is. I know for me gratitude never really helped change my emotional state, mostly because I don't really have anything to be grateful for and trying to force it doesn't lead to anything happening. I can't help but wonder if maybe this has something to do with toxic positivity or something like that, and whether the results from the science are really accurate because modern society does have a positivity bias.

But even then wouldn't the practice depend on you having stuff to be grateful for among other things outside of your control as well? To me that makes the original quote about a commitments wrong since our emotions depend on things out of our control. We can't just create our emotional state to be whatever we want it to be just by focusing enough, it doesn't work like that (nevermind where the motivation behind that wanting to comes from if emotions are the reasons we do anything).47.5.66.54 (talk) 20:42, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

People vary in how they relate emotionally to the world and life I guess. Myself, I'm anchored in something and emotions are tied to meaning both ways. I find it weird and useless to try to put on artificial emotional "postures", much like I don't spend much time forcing my muscles into making weird physical postures. But some people have the latter as a major part of life, and I guess the same may go for the former as well. Some like to live with their feelings not rooted in anything meaningful and just forcing their minds and hearts into weird postures. That's something various kinds of mystical folks are into, but not all. Likewise, some folks like to push their minds into believing whatever rubbish they want to believe moment by moment, losing touch with reality; that's pretty common in the New Age. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 21:15, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
This 'Gary' can go fuck himself. With a concrete bollard. Minus any lube.
This crap is nothing more than woo being peddled from the school of 'stop feeling that way' and the module titled 'that sounds like a you problem'. If someone is in a bad position, no the 'solution' is to simply force youself to be happy with it, that you should be 'grateful' because it could be worse. Next stop, rationalising it's 'not that bad', finally ending with you gaslighting yourself into thinking the situation is okay. Hmm... who shall benefit from this? Guilt-tripping parents, manipulative bosses, abusive partners, user 'friends' and spite/malice-filled politicians because you shall simply 'look on the bright side', suck up the shit and not expect better.
Negative emotions are part of us. They make us. They drive us. To deny their existence simply... why, exactly? Does stubborn denial of issues ever work for the Stepford Smiler? Imagine this 'advice' being handed to a survivor of PTSD, an escapee or neglect/abuse or someone who really has taken a kicking from the Game of Life? That's not 'bone to pick' territory, that's downright malign and trivialising 'advice' which is actively damaging.
KarmaPolice (talk) 22:50, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I mean you can take a look at the website to get an idea of what he's like. https://pathwaytohappiness.com/blog/feeling-connected/ Personally I don't know what to make of him, when I try to ask him questions he seems kinda evasive with answering them.47.5.66.54 (talk) 23:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

gratitude towards a black hole doesn't work. I think the idea is, no matter whatcha got, entirely your effort is what you give, and it will not return by virtue of giving. So if you give honesty here with an expectation of return, it's truly a human act, but giving honestly is tough. You can only expect a human response to a really tough question. I don't expect anything. If you can give and let go, that is closer to a humane act. Would you like to go back and tear it all down? That would make sense, but I don't really think you're recruiting an army here. It's ok. It's alright. I'll ride if needed, as long as it's truth to power that doesn't spill into anger. I can't promise I'll behave on my ideals, but I would like you to call me out any time I mess up. Torrent (talk) 04:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC) Torrent (talk) 04:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Clicking through the website you linked to I couldn't see anything instantly objectionable, though it certainly has the capacity to be "woo adjacent". I couldn't find any actual qualifications listed apart from self-identified experience for Garry. It looks like a lot of his stuff is free but then you have to start paying, but on the other hand I guess it's a business. I didn't get a really "pay-over-your-life-scientology feel" though. On a quick search I couldn't find anything negative about him on the net. His book on amazon has a lot of positive reviews. If you feel he is helping you then - well he's helping you. If you don't get that feeling - then drop him.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:23, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

His "events"[19] seem fairly objectionable to me. The Teotihuacán one is particularly nutty ("If you are ready to dissolve your fears, false beliefs, and identification with your mind, and experience unconditional love from which you can create a new life that you love, then join us at the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacán Mexico.") I was there many years ago. It's a real tourist trap by night when they have a "sound and light show" rigged up on the pyramids. Similar hogwash is proposed for the Egyptian pyramids trip ("Raising your consciousness and levels of unconditional love through the power and energy of temples in Ancient Egypt. This 11 day guided spiritual journey will take you past the limiting beliefs of your mind to feel and embody your Self as Consciousness and Love. Dissolving your fears, false beliefs, and identification with your mind becomes a byproduct of your experience through these ceremonies that initiate and activates your Consciousness.") Bongolian (talk) 07:16, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
There is also the whiff of Carlos Castañeda fraud about this "gary guy" (Gary van Warmerdam): inspired by a purported Toltec shaman, don Miguel Ruiz.[20][21] The ToltecsWikipedia were a pre-Aztec civilization (c. 950–1168 CE), so you know this is total bullshit that they're churning out. Bongolian (talk) 07:29, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
I remember reading Journey to Ixtlan, when I was a kid. I think the modern view of it ignores the value of Castañeda's work. It always was fiction. Fantastic, Steven King type fiction. The Teachings of Don Juan, is written in a way that appeals to an academic mind, but how it deceived actual academics, I have no idea, except to suppose that the University administrators, more interested in commercial success than academic quality, wanted to promote their own institution and co-opt the success of the books. Even as a kid, I read the books as romances.
The ethical transgression of passing them off as anthropology may be eventually forgotten. But those who were willing to promote the work as serious anthropology are , in my view, primarily responsible. As a writer, I just send the manuscript out into the world. What I meant by it is entirely up to the reader. Frankenstein was bullshit too, but I have no doubt that there were gullible readers who assumed the plot was plausible. There still are, really. The fault belongs to people who take this stuff seriously.UncleKrampus (talk) 13:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
maybe its legit but just requires human sacrifice to make it work. i start every morning with a nice cup of tea while holding the still beating heart i cut out of young boy. the toltecs probably drank coffee i know, or maybe hot chocolate, but really any tasty beverage works for your ritual murder to set your mind at peace. unless you just dont want to be happy. so closed minded here. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:09, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Coffee originated in East Africa and southern Arabia, so it did not arrive in the New World until post-Toltec times. Chocolate is much more likely as it originated in Mesoamerica (Xocolatl). Bongolian (talk) 18:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
When this guy came up before, I noted that Warmerdam wallowed in a fair bit of New Age hogwash, although less oogie-boogie and more aligned with self help. As I mentioned then, I thought it was "mostly harmless" hogwash except to sucker who actually pays this "guru"'s wallet, but it *is* a lot of hogwash nonetheless. I compared him with Deepak Chopra at the time. The problem with self-help stuff as a general rule (this also includes "motivational" speakers too) is that (as the RW article states) it does not derive from anything scientific, and embraces a sort of "pop spiritualism" "pep talk". In America (I wonder what self-help books look like outside it, if they exist?), this means wallowing in gentle gym-coach style rhetoric where the aim is to drive out "negative" and embrace "positive" through a series of generic "motivational" platitudes, calmly positive deepity text that as a generic summary I'll describe as "DesiderataWikipedia-isms". The New Age influences for this guy particularly shows up when he appropriates the religion of ancient culture as a noble savage sort of thing, as in the events, which are an absolute rip-off. $850 for a week at Zion National ParkWikipedia (entrance fees and "ceremony" only, not including transportation, lodging, and meals)? Go grab an annual park pass for $80 (if you are 62 and older that's the cost of the lifetime pass), and you can see well more natural wonders than Zion.
There is nothing wrong with gratitude and it is widely seen as a moral positive (which is why it shows up in practically every religion), I just don't know if this is something that can be driven through some sort of exercise alone. I mean, gratitude is an appreciative response to kindness. I couldn't find a link for the OP quote, so I have no idea what sort of exercise Warmerdam was thinking was needed for that? BobJohnson (talk) 23:38, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Well pretty much everything I list is from the forum where you can find his lessons. You cannot access it unless you sign up. I only listed stuff from the free lessons, I'm not shelling money out to him. But suffice to say it includes stuff like "things don't make us feel, it's our beliefs that do that because how else can the same thing offend and make someone laugh", which seems off to me. The thought that beliefs create emotions and you just have to do a belief inventory to change things to what you want. But then that begs the question of what is fueling the motivation to change your beliefs. If it's about personal power then where is that motivation coming from and what is driving it? No answer from him. I can't post the lesson because it's too long and I got flagged last time.47.5.66.54 (talk) 01:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Thing is, they are not trying to teach you to 'be more grateful for what you have' by fighting back against consumerism, peer pressure, Hollywood etc, it's 'positive thinking' on steroids to enforce feelings of gratitude onto yourself for no reason except it is a 'good' emotion. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:16, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
It indeed sounds like the toxic version of “positive thinking” along with its horrendous subtext that the problem is really about you and your feeling, not anything structural, in the world or caused by others.
That’s really some perverse Panglossian gaslighting to peddle, not to mention that it’s also detrimental to any legitimate calls for change. It’s basically taking the slogan ’Why change the world when you can change your mind?’ at face value. Where did I get that line? From the fictive marketing slogan for the mind altering CHIP in the dystopian cyberpunk squad shooter, Syndicate…Wikipedia ScepticWombat (talk) 17:08, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Which Mike is better?[edit]

Mikemikev or Mike Adams ←§ Reichtangle (talk) 10:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Which is better, getting stabbed in the left eye or getting stabbed in the right eye? Spud (talk) 10:31, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Lol. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 17:31, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
They differ in their overall focus and achievements. While Mike Adams does impressive work furthering commercial spam, Mikemikev is known for non-commerical spam. While the former strives to make a lot of money, the latter mostly strives to make the bald man cry. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 18:21, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Mike Lindell, obviously! Plutocow (talk) 03:19, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Vivek Ramaswamy and BuzzFeed[edit]

So I may be a few days late on this, but it's about time I bring this up. Wingnut businessman and former GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had spent around 3.3 million dollars to purchase 7.7% of BuzzFeed. [22]. BuzzFeed already has a very poor track record when it comes to citing sources, as well as relying on clickbait sponsorship articles just to make money. So how much damage do you think will be done to the site now that Ramaswamy directly owns a part of BuzzFeed? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 12:36, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

The impact is probably minimal. The only worthwhile part of that site that I am aware of was BuzzfeedNews, which did do some good investigative journalism. That shut down last year.
The current site is very pop culture / celebrity news fluff. So the only way I can see an impact (a negative one, I might add) if Ramaswamy uses his influence to try to inject wingnut political bullshit into the fluff ala National Enquirer. Although in other locales combined politics and celebrity gossip have been combined in the tabloids (I'm thinking the British tabloid market here in particular), in the US I see political news and celebrity gossip / fluff listicles as quite separate markets. BobJohnson (talk) 16:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Agree with BobJ. BF's business model is not really conducive to political crap - and BF is not even really 'vital' (the format is very easy to copy). His shareholding is also not (yet) large enough to really make is wishes felt on the company. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:14, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Sooo....[edit]

I just wanted to say that macroevolution (not just micro) is rock solid, humans came from Africa recently, Jews do not control the world, Jews don't hate non Jews/white people, Jews didnt invent communism, string theory is true, relativity is true and the consensus is usually correct. 9/11 was done by Al Qaeda, the Jews didn't do most of the things they're accused of, we landed on the moon, mass shootings are real and so is global warming. I felt the need to say this, because I denied it in the past. But after a lot of critical thinking and studying science I have changed my mind. 2603:9001:300:81A:786D:60BD:5DFF:35D0 (talk) 13:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean String Theory is true? How do you know that?UncleKrampus (talk) 15:52, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes, the rest is obviously true. But string theory is a bit of an outlier. Not that I would claim to understand it.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 18:14, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
As far as I know string theory is so far unfalsifiable, hence neither true nor false. Bongolian (talk) 18:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Well, in science, the 'consensus', even vague, when it exists, so much that it's existence is consensual and majoritarian, is 'truth' as we surely understand it, however in democracy, there is no rationalist solution which can be both 'consensual' and 'true' at the same time (there can, however, among respectable political factions, be conventional usages accepting and supporting democracy, liberty and equality (with various interpretations and applications of those systems) which tell us far-left and far-right are simply bad and inacceptable if anti-republican). New world (talk) 23:03, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
@Bongolian falsifiability doesn’t imply a proposition or theory is not truth-apt. It just means the claims of a theory can be subject to a critical test that has the potential to refute the theory. Failing falsification wouldn’t necessarily imply the theory’s claims are true. All falsification can provide is a logical inference via modus tollens to falsehood. Logical tautologies like the law of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle are arguably not falsifiable, if they were they wouldn’t be laws of logic classed as necessary truths. Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:49, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Classical Christian Education: A mission worthy topic[edit]

https://classicalchristian.org/glossary-of-terms-home/

It is popular among fundies and the GOP. It is generally Creationist in nature. Hillsdale College, a far right Christian College, advocates Classical Christian Education as a substitute for public education. School vouchers are used for these schools and it comes at the expense of public education. --Trans Fem Agenda 19:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

If you feel like it's a good missional topic for the wiki, you could either start up a draft for it or leave a suggestion for it on RationalWiki's "to do" list! Sincerely, Postuhenin the neurodivergent doodlebug! (say hi! ^^) 03:15, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
This doesn't look a whole lot different from homeschooling I've seen. The worry would be if the college funneled up in a meaningful sense, otherwise you're looking at an HVAC repairman trying his best to support 5 or 6 kids while the wife stays trad, because you can't pay for 5 or 6 kids on an HVAC repairman salary. Well, it comes from the government, and if you're really against public schooling, every child you have meets a home school stipend, their education standard meets not much. The money with the best intention to buy supplies and help those kids. and I truly believe childcare costs are prohibitive, you can't just get a 14 dollar job and leave a preschooler at home alone.
Public schools are so stupidly underfunded that they can't have baby wranglers from 4 am to 7 pm, but that's what they need, isn't it? People whose job it is to keep your kid from hurting themselves or others from the time you go to work until the time you can pick them up, and in the mean time, some real experts at teaching work with them on how to read and do math and shit. I think public schooling should be a national priority that extends and replaces home daycare, because at its core, that is what it is doing. It really doesn't take a lot to keep a kid safe and alive. If every kid can be expected to link up for a virtual classroom, it's really dumb to say every kid who might need a breakfast gets it run by a bus route that used to pick up kids. All these things are possible, public schooling just needs to also be funded for before and after care. If you can pay 15 year olds to babysit or work at a church daycare, you can pay them to work at a school. If school bus drivers exist, I mean, who and how do you wind up in that job? Picking up and driving a bunch of middle schoolers to school, and you're the only adult on the bus? How is that a job? Torrent (talk) 03:37, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't look that different to homeschooling' because homeschooling is 'traditional American' which was a derivative of Classical Education as originally practiced in C19th England - and this 'new movement' is simply harking back to this.
RW does not have a page on Classical Education. I recommend a page on that is produced first - mainly because they share the same strength/weaknesses, format etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:46, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

RationalWiki dark mode[edit]

A mock-up of a possible dark version of the front page.

It's probably not gonna come in the near future, but it would be awesome if there was a "dark mode" that could be applied to RationalWiki at the click of a button, because I was getting off of watching a video on YouTube and had my eyes blasted with a sudden burst of BRIGHTNESS. And yes, I know the "custom CSS" option exists, but I'm no good with CSS tbh :(

Sincerely, Postuhenin the neurodivergent doodlebug! (say hi! ^^) 07:24, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I could not agree more. My old, worn, and tired eyes would benefit from the option and I haven't a clue about how to properly do any CSS stuff. Kencolt (talk) 08:56, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
One already exists; go under "Preferences" -> "Gadgets" -> "User interface gadgets" -> "Dark mode" Plutocow (talk) 17:28, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
So it does. Thank you for telling me, It's much easier to read now. Kencolt (talk) 02:13, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I am concerned about the the thing I say here[edit]

I'm not happy to say the easist thing, That It is really cool that you made it here.— Unsigned, by: Torrent / talk / contribs

Did you want an argument?UncleKrampus (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
I think we'd need a translation before that. Kencolt (talk) 19:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)