RationalWiki talk:What is going on in the world?/Archive40

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This is an archive page, last updated 7 April 2024. Please do not make edits to this page.
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Iowa[edit]

This sort of leads me to wonder how state-level civil rights law ended up covering gender identity in Iowa of all the places, in the first place. I don't think it's gone blue since even before gay marriage was federally legalized. Chillpilled (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Midwestern states in general were once more "swingy" and regularly voted in Democratic politicians, regardless of whether or not they had a big urban city. Democrats held the governorship and the legislature in Iowa in 2007, so they were able to add in that clause then. [1] One of the key elements of the current "realignment" is the urban-rural dynamic. States whose largest cities are only modestly sized and have heavy rural populations, like Iowa, have gone heavier Republican as a result. (You can see the same thing happen with Indiana - Indianapolis is hardly a Minneapolis, Chicago, or Detroit.) BobJohnson (talk) 00:23, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Oh, I see I skimmed past that one. Still a bit surprised that was put through as early as 2007. Chillpilled (talk) 00:38, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Putin Says a Biden Presidency is better than a trump one[edit]

I read how we considered putin saying Biden Would be better than Trump a stopped Clock. BULL F"""""" S""". It's obvious that he's trying to trick people into voting for the cheeto nazi. You can see in these two articles at least https: [2] [3] . He may be evil but he's not stupid. & that was not a stopped clock. Yacob01 (talk) 14:29, 20 Febuary 2024 (AEST)

Who knows, maybe he really does mean it. It is true Trump is very erratic, which Putin said in this interview. Thinking away from the Ukraine war, Trump did take out Soleimani, a top general for Iran which is somewhat Russia-aligned. Which was a very bold move, and could have easily started a war. Chillpilled (talk) 14:00, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

On the Gaza truck aids[edit]

Apparently, we don't know exactly what happened. I'm not saying that this is the case (in fact, from what I've seen, it probably isn't) but this could be another Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosionWikipedia incident (ie. probably not the IDF's fault, at least to some extent). The CNN and The Guardian are adopting a more neutral tone.[4][5] I believe we should edit the entry and adopt a more neutral tone for now too. Again, I'm not saying that this isn't Israel's fault (I'm inclined to say it is), just that it's too early right now to reach a defining conclusion. What do you guys think? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 22:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Israel also has a long track record of bullshitting (Here's just one example that the media so credulously repeated), so I think we'd need independent verification, which, as of October anyway, Israel was refusing to allow journalists into Gaza. There's also the problem that any reporting would take Israel's claims at face value, which they haven't really earned as an obviously biased party (and one with a long history of deceit). Also, keep in mind that NPOV is not necessarily objective. CNN at the very least also has a heavy pro-Israel bias, which is something we should factor into account. Carthage (talk) 23:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Even the IDF admits they fired on civilians at some point. I'm editing my own entry with a couple notes. Chillpilled (talk) 05:52, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

"Same organization whose founder celebrated October 7th"[edit]

Disregarding the fact that @Monet edited my WIGO without permission, this would seem to count as a case of the genetic fallacy as the founder's personal opinions in no way undermine the reporting conducted by Euromed. Carthage (talk) 15:37, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it's interesting. A humanitarian organization essentially saying, "Fuck yeah, violence!", tells me enough to say humanitarianism is just a farce for them.-Ryan1257 (talk) 15:53, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Is this guy even associated with Euromed anymore? And even if he was, how is this relevant to their reporting on the Flour Massacre? This seems like an attempt to fallaciously undermine my WIGO. Anyway, I'm more pissed off Monet edited my WIGO without permission. This should've been taken to the talk page first. Carthage (talk) 15:56, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
I didn't edit your WIGO, I only added a statement on Euromed being an unreliable source. The same organization that lied about the numbers of fighters killed, while even Hamas admitted that over 6000 of those killed were its fighters. And the founder is still the chairman of Euromed, Monet Ye 16:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Hamas fighters are not mentioned in your linked article. It says 92% of fatalities are civilians. So your contention that this is flawed reporting is based off of something that's not even contained in the text itself. You edited my WIGO without permission, and now you're attempting to justify it post-hoc.
You also didn't add a statement implicating Euromed as an unreliable source, you added personal opinions of the founder, which is irrelevant to the reporting on the Flour Massacre. Carthage (talk) 16:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
WIGO editing without permission should only be done for inaccurate paraphrasings or if the source is really bad. The opinions of the founder don't inherently seem relevant enough to discredit the source to me, nor do I think the news is controversial. I'm unsure about Euromeds relevance as a source, but we also have examples of groups such as Doctors without Borders holding Israel responsible. There are also a slew of independent statements from groups like UNICEF that indirectly call out Israel by noting the importance of safe access to humanitarian aid. -- Techpriest (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Monet is also engaging in bad-faith misrepresentation. I looked at the tweets he provided, and none of them mention justifying the targeting of civilians. Consider that, as former Israeli general Giora Eiland put it in 2004, Gaza is a "concentration camp." The people of Gaza have been kept in an open-air prison for 16 years, as attested by human rights groups like Human Rights Watch. The tweets refer to the resilience of Palestinians and the desire to gain freedom from this prison camp. While some can question the meaning and connotation of these phrases, to suggest that he is endorsing the targeting of civilians is false. — Unsigned, by: Cw64126 / talk
There is, in any case, actually no scenario here in which Israel isn't responsible for what I suppose has been dubbed the "Flour Massacre". Even if their own account was entirely correct that most of the casualties were from a stampede, they engineered this situation in the first place — there would be no extreme crowding around aid trucks if more aid trucks were allowed in at all. There is a quote on that other wiki for the page about stampedes:Wikipedia
"Stampede is not only an incorrect term, it is a loaded word, as it assigns blame to the victims for behaving in an irrational, self-destructive, unthinking and uncaring manner, it's pure ignorance, and laziness […] It gives the impression that it was a mindless crowd only caring about themselves, and they were prepared to crush people. In virtually all these situations, this is not the case, and it is usually the authorities to blame for poor planning, poor design, poor control, poor policing and mismanagement. The truth is that people are only directly crushed by others who have no choice in the matter, and the people who can choose don't know what is going on because they're too far away from the epicentre. — Edwin Galea, professor of fire safety engineering at the University of Greenwich, England" Chillpilled (talk) 00:41, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Teresa May's PMB[edit]

If you're going to present a lopsided version of events, couched in emotive language, either fact check or place it in blogs / clogs. This is RationalWiki. London Grump (talk) 13:37, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm assuming this is directed at me, but I sorta feel I can immediately disregard it as you didn't even fact-check who wrote the bill. I feel pretty happy with the way I presented it :P (っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Natsuki Marx ♥ (talk) 13:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I have no idea who posted it because I didn't check. It's not about the person, it's the principle. London Grump (talk) 14:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
So you didn't do the bare minimum to check? Carthage (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I didn't check who posted the story but I have been following the story. That's how I know it's bullshit.
It was a dead duck of a bill with zero chance of being chance of being heard in the first place. The British tabloids spun it to make it look like the woke Labour Party was trying to shut down a brave attempt to protect women and children from predatory trans.
The irony is that NHS England put a block on prescribing them earlier last week. The Bill was effectively redundant.
If it can't be presented factually here, it shouldn't be presented at all. London Grump (talk) 22:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Just wanna remind us all that Liz Truss' bill banned private healthcare from prescribing them, not the NHS. These are meaningfully different. And, what do you mean the story is "bullshit"? The filibuster didn't happen? (っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Natsuki Marx ♥ (talk) 22:34, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3560
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-04/0035/230035.pdf
Was an earlier PMB discussed? Yes. Was it a filibuster? No. No more than Usain Bolt would bother sabotaging my running shoes. That didn't stop UK tabloids putting a spin on it.
Let's be clear. The system is rigged against Private Member's Bills. They are rarely even considered to become law. London Grump (talk) 23:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I have no idea who's actually correct here but what London Grump is saying tracks precisely with the sort of hackery I've come to expect from British tabloids on this subject. Doesn't matter even if Labour capitulates a lot on the issue, the right-wing tabloids (that seems to be most tabloids) will continue pretending they're some kind of "woke"s. Chillpilled (talk) 23:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Liz Truss' bill has been reported as being "talked out" by The Independent. [6] The "ferret filibuster" concept seems to have come about as a talking point because one of the discussion topics was a bill concerning the import of certain pets (like ferrets).[7] The "talking out" thing sounds much milder than a filibuster to be honest, it sounds quite procedural.
My "from across the pond" impression of late is that Truss is trying to import the US style "culture war" bullshit to the UK in order to revive her career; while some Tories are sympathetic on this sort of thing, a lot are not. BobJohnson (talk) 23:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Indeed. She met some interesting people at the recent CPAC and she has long established links with the Institute of Economic Affairs (and, by extension, their various culture war groups).
Culture war, like all propaganda, celebrates imaginary victories and mourns imaginary defeats to support a broader narrative. To celebrate an imaginary victory - even the Independent article is essentially he-said she-said - is to legitimise the concept of culture war.
This was an unexceptional parliamentary event. It would be interesting to find out how many MPs were in the chamber on Friday afternoon. It's usually no more than double figures. 09:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)