RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive433

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, (new)(back)

Far Right: Protecting the world from the horrors of free expression

The party that claims to be for freedom happily stomps on American values of freedom. Why don't they use the Bill of Rights as a dinner napkin? Use the flag as toilet paper? The GOP happily sticks up for Russian aggression which is based on Anti-Americanism. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 20:52, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Is there a question here somewhere, or just a random ramble? KarmaPolice (talk) 22:10, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Me venting my frustration towards extremists. Sorry. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 23:05, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Don't be, you're fine. This is called "the bar" for a reason. Vee^Meow? 23:16, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Small government for me, big government for thee. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 03:15, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Conservative Logic: Small government means no taxes and huge police forces.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 20:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

GOP Wyoming legislators of the libertarian ilk actually blocked DeSantis-inspired "Stop Woke" legislation from proceeding on the basis of government overreach.[1] Bongolian (talk) 21:54, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

That's one of the things about the GOP types who promote DeSantis as the "smarter Trump"... DeSantis is increasingly way more overt about using the government to bully "enemies" and push his increasingly all-encompassing "anti-woke" / Woke Derangement Syndrome theme.

Not that principled libertarians would be happy with Trump either, but from my perspective, DeSantis comes across as way more petulant, spiteful, and authoritarian, and risks repelling even more of certain vote sectors like libertarian-leaners. There are voters who like this sort of authoritarian thing, of course, and you never know, but to me DeSantis is less "smarter Trump" and more "more racist, more authoritarian Trump" without the Trump faux blue-collar charm. I personally can't see him appealing very broadly once people get to know him. If this is the best the GOP has to offer post-Trump, well...

Of late, I am particularly finding the "fuck Advanced Placement" theme DeSantis flirted with pushing "oh so much fun" (/s). It sure is "fun" to see DeSantis (Yale grad, who took AP courses at Dunedin High) and other Florida GOP folks flirt with the American Dumb and going even further by dissing the homegrown accelerated-coursework curriculum, and actually thinking that "alternatives" like the "Classic Learning Test" (a test good enough for Bob Jones and Liberty University types of schools! But not much else...) will suffice as a replacement for the SAT.

That being said, the "school is conspiratorial indoctrination!" crowd DeSantis is chasing really isn't that different from the good old days. I remember around the 1990s to 2000s that the International Baccalaureate would get criticized among certain lone brain cell Republican types for undermining supposed "Judeo-Christian" values and being socialist or Marxist or something. Not much different than today, except the "Judeo" part of those values has been dropped and replaced with conspiratorial rants about George Soros. BobJohnson (talk) 00:04, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

The core issue is that to get to the 'real' election, you're normally required to first fight in a closed primary - and in the 'Republicans' case, that's running across the MAGA's rifle-range. And they're generally shit at picking candidates [just see the '22 crop]; they go with who panders to their crankery, not the one who may have wider electoral appeal or, god forbid actual competence or general intelligence. Thus explains the rapid decline in quality; the Republicans no longer really have leaders, they have demagogues.

This slots in with the folks who laud DeSantis as a 'smarter Trump'; they've looked at some polling which showed that the Great Orange was scoring negatives on what we could call 'tone issues' with the 'Soccer Mom' / 'Professional Dad' types and if only if they could get a person who didn't 'rile their feathers' they'd win more elections. It's why they hate the 'mainstream media' so much; like a crappy company hating the poor Trustpilot ratings, Amazon stars and honest product reviewers - if only we can get better coverage everything would go great! KarmaPolice (talk) 10:58, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Away with the fairies

The phrase is a Briticism, and suitable for this Anna Livia (talk) 19:53, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I think I have a new favorite politician. Vee^Meow? 20:01, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Does it really matter? When it comes down to it, I think a politician who literally believes in elves might be less a danger to society than one who believes in creationism, prosperity gospel and/or trickle-down economics. In fact, perhaps much less. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:25, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Biden is a Catholic, and nobody makes fun of him for believing in immaculate conception. Honestly making fun of this Mexican president for believing in elves (when a majority of Iceland does the same) strikes me as being a little racist, even if unintentional. Still, it's funny. I think the "elf" in the photo is an animal. You can see the light reflecting in the eyes the same way the light reflects in a cat's eyes if you take a photo of them in the dark. This is because of the so-called "third eyelid" many animals have (including the ancestors of humans if you go back far enough). It's properly called the nictitating membrane. Vee^Meow? 20:28, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

biden doesnt claim to have a photo of the immaculate conception. jimmy carter on the other hand says he saw a ufo. and was attacked by a rabbit. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

and i suspect the mexican pres is a catholic too. belief as an act faith is also quite a bit different from claiming photographic evidence. the problems that mexico has, i question whether their president is maybe focused on the wrong things. 'His far-fetched claim came as thousands took to the streets of Mexico City over the weekend to protest against an alleged presidential power grab' but hes got a photo of an elf. the cartels must be shitting themselvesAMassiveGay (talk) 21:05, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Yet another example how so few people involved with UFOs or cryptozoology etc. fail to take a simple flashlight, which you would think would be essential kit, when wandering around in the woods at dark.

(It's too fuzzy to really tell what that is, but I certainly would lean towards animal; in the interest of wild speculation I'm going to go with "actually an owl"). BobJohnson (talk) 21:49, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I doubt the Mexican President actually believes it’s an elf. I bet he’s just trying to create a stir to distract from his political problems at home. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 21:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

"It's properly called the nictitating membrane." It's actually a retroreflective later on the back of the eye called the tapetum ludicum. It's plausible that drow elves would have one considering their adaptation to life in the Underdark. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 22:06, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

The UK has its share of 'supernatural entities and activities' - elves, the Wild Hunt, the Green Man etc.

The article asked for the header :) Anna Livia (talk) 00:45, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

RE: Biden's Catholicism. Like almost any non-nuts religious person, he's shown himself to be in 'disagreement' with at least two aspects of dogma, and as we have not [to my knowledge] heard him pontificate on the subject of original sin and/or the immaculate conception, we cannot assume that he literally believes in it. In my experience, most folks like this are at least a little 'heretical' in some aspect, or at very least downplay teachings on some things [esp when the rulings conflict]. Plus, the old man was raised in this faith, so it's a bit less likely for him to be a zealot on it. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:53, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Japan leads the world in patents per capita and its leading religion of Shintoism believes in kamis which are a type of deities/spirits. The USA is third place in patents per capita and around 40% of its population believes in young earth creationism. A lot of factors go into societal and technological progress so harping on politicians religious beliefs seems kind of silly. Yoshi24518 (talk) 09:53, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

ignoring the idiotic tangent above, we do actually rip the piss out of christians for their beliefs. and if its relevent, christian politicians for their beliefs. for biden though, it isnt at all. AMassiveGay (talk) 10:24, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

and ignoring my own ignoring of the above, 'harping on' bout the religious beliefs of politicians is less silly when you consider the constant religious themed assaults on lgbt rights AMassiveGay (talk) 10:33, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

In America, a certain type of "Christianity" and the Republican party are now practically merged together in dogma; how can you ignore a politician's religious beliefs when politics and religion are one and the same with this lot? At the extreme edge is a side which absolutely wants to implement authoritarian theocracy if they could; even the mainstream Republican flirts with white nationalism. Given where I suspect is the primary domain of the above suspicious new troll, it should know, that site has been mixing politics and religion for decades.

I give very little shits about one's private beliefs if they don't impose it on others, but wrapping authoritarianism in religion is a depressingly common despot tactic. ("AMLO" has been flirting with anti-democratic shit from what I understand so its possible this "elves" thingy is a tactic in mythological deflection, for all I know...) BobJohnson (talk) 13:17, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

But it's kind of difficult to separate a politician from their beliefs. For example we have Kate Forbes - a Christian politician who would like to lead the SNP and who has expressed controversial positions (in UK terms) on equal marriage, transgender rights and sex outside marriage. Though she now seems to trying to create some distance between what she actually believes and what she would actually do. But is this a reasonable position?

When the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan they initially suggested that their religious views would not really affect their policies too much. And we all saw how long that lasted.

If a politician says "¨These are my fundamental beliefs but I won't act on them when I have power" - then they they are either lying, or publicly declaring their desire to trade their principles for power. In either event they should not be given power.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:10, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

There are certain technicalities with the UK Prime Minister appointing the Church of England bishops - and people would have been surprised if Tony Blaire had *not* converted to Catholicism within a few months of leaving office. Anna Livia (talk) 17:37, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn't read the entire thread so I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but AMLO apparently believes more in elves and fairies than he believes in democracy, considering how bad his electoral overhaul is[2][3][4]. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 17:49, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I am not so sure with that, Bob. With some people, no their belief in liberty does override their personal viewpoints on X. Or they accept the futility in trying to 'legislate morality'. Or they simply see that they reside in a pluralistic society and the only way the whole thing continues to hold together is that a very wide 'freedom of maneuver' is given to individuals re their lives. Or they simply get that if today you use power as a cugel to ram through your 'pet projects' for your faction over the majority [and their objections], don't be surprised if the overriding goal comes to steal that cugel off you and whack you over the head with it.

The 'Kate Forbes affair' is a very similar situation to what the old LD leader Tim Farron fell into back in '17; Where he got cornered into talking about gay sex, his faith and views of the issues squaring them. Which I would argue is why she decided to be 'frank and honest' about it, assure voters it won't become a political issue and then basically end with saying 'c'mon, you can trust me'. Which is I think the main point. In this current era, we put far too much stock in 'liking' a politician personally, or hearing them say shit which most tallies with our own views - not on whether we actully trust them to follow through on the promises, or to do the right thing when the Black Swan hits on a [until then] dull Tuesday morning. It's what James O'Brian calls the 'footballification of politics'; we don't give a toss about competence, honesty or integrety; we just want to see 'our person' is wearing our shirt-colours and to be able to mime the words to the club song - that's all. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

considering forbes statements on vetoes as yet unchallenged and the renegotiating of bills, i think her religious views are very much political issues and we can trust she will follow through on them. whether thats the line the snp voters want to take is more the point. though the other lady is much in line with forbes on gender rec, and ive no clue of her religious inclinations.

farron's problem was that his religious views vs political views were of issue to him personally. you cant trust the leader of a major political party to do the right when they are unable to convey any sense they are able to trust themselves to know what the right thing was.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The “Kate Forbes affair” (and Tim Farron, for that matter) is indeed about trust: Do we trust a person to not follow through on their religious views in their politics, especially when said views are somewhat fundamentalist/extreme compared to that of the general population? Another trust issue is whether to trust a person whose religious views seem very at odds with their political views.

Hence, I don’t see either the Forbes or Farron case as being about like/dislike, but trust/distrust. If a politician can’t convince the voters that you are able to compartmentalise your personal faith from your politics, that some of your other beliefs take precedent, or that you are not a hypocrite that will say or do anything (by either hiding or setting aside your core beliefs) to get into power, why should they trust that politician?

While she was at least open about her views, I don’t think Forbes did herself any favours by using kind of “lawyery” phrases when asked directly about whether she would protect those groups that don’t square with her religious views. If a politician is asked about whether they will protect the rights of group X and the answer is not yes/no, but “I will protect everyone’s rights”, I don’t blame people for being a bit wary of said politician. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:36, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

i dont think stating they would protect 'everyones rights' is convincing/strong enough imho. its probably very easy to make that claim and fuck off your crazy church when rights that are being protected are enshrined in law already. you can pass it off as that battles already lost and changing the law now would be a nonstarter. they are merely promising not take any rights away. protecting everyones rights becomes a lot more iffy when not everyone has the same rights to protect. protecting everyones rights here becomes everyones rights in law right now whether that is dreadfully bigoted or not. and when votes come up determining what rights are to be extended and in what way for groups not covered by existing laws, or votes to correct injustices for a group, and debate is far from over, and you need to ask again about their religious views. red flags are they'll say its a question of conscience, and past votes on key rights do not fill you with trust is something you can have. farron had some suspect voting choices but had no crucial rights votes on the horizon. forbes on the other hand has suspect voting choices, and saying she would have voted against the bill vetoed on trans rights that she will have to very soon decide whether or not to challenge if she wins the snp job, giving every indication she will let the tories kill the bill. for both farron and forbes, trust is something not earned on rights issues. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:25, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I get exactly where Gay is coming from on this, and that's kinda sad. That to state you're a Christian in mainstream society now almost automatically makes you a suspected social reactionary with perhaps authortarian leanings [slow clap for the Religious Right for tainting the brand so]. But the question I pose is this; if either Farron or Forbes had explicitly promised they wouldn't look to gut/repeal current legislation re; minority rights, would you believe them?

The other aspect is related, but not identical. After all, there's a difference between 'rollback of rights' and 'stasis of rights'; it's very possible that under a Farron/Forbes rule that LGBT legislation [for example] simply wouldn't improve. Then there's the 'by the backdoor' stuff which can be done; for example an fundie Christian as Education Sec could gut Sex Ed by getting the official guidence watered-down and loosening the regulations to allow crank abstinence-only materials to be used if the school boss desired it. These are more knotty problems, esp as there's much shit you can pull while remaining technically on the side of 'keeping your word'. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:21, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Usually, those who take pains to publicly emphasise their Christianity tend to be of the more fervent/fundamentalist version, hence why I tend to be wary of them. I would expect quite a lot, if not most, UK politicians to be Christians of one variety or another, but you usually don’t hear them “brag” about it.

I might have believed Farron, had he been less mealy mouthed on the topic, because there are differing strains of Catholicism, but Forbes being in the Wee Frees and her waffling on rather simple questions is a red flag for me. If she said she would definitely protect the rights of those her church sees as deviant sinners, it would seem a bit odd to remain with that church. However, I would probably be more likely to believe her, if she was not only more explicit in her defence of “sinners’ rights”, but also willing to defend those views if/when criticised by her church. ScepticWombat (talk) 00:35, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Rating a compliment

In a discussion I replied with [basic science] explanation, and was told I was a science shill. How much of a compliment is this? Anna Livia (talk) 11:46, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

It's probably either a tongue-in-cheek complement indicating that someone thinks you have a respectable level of knowledge, or that you are being accused of being an accomplice in some wide-ranging conspiracy (to make the dragons go away, maybe). I'd regard it moderately positively in either case. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 11:57, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

The opponent was advocating [something stupid] (rather than 'my pet/offbeat theory and similar') and my response was at 'popular science' books level.

Were there actual maps which had 'here be dragons'? Anna Livia (talk) 12:47, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

It could be that you are a shill for big pharma and you are trying push milk formula on third world countries at the cost of the lives to those mothers and children it's forced upon, or they just wish to shut you down and not engage with arguments based on the known science because it weakens their support for the use of cosmic ordering in treating cancer. Context is key, and honest self reflection should tell you whether you should reappraise your position or view those calling you a shill with contempt for not even attempting to defend what ever anti science dogshit they are flogging. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:33, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

It was 'a topic rubbished on RW' and my comments were at the 'Man on the Clapham Omnibus and equivalent characters' level so the latter. Anna Livia (talk) 13:43, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

You say that but just how much do you get in kick backs getting us drs to oversubscribe opioids? How do you sleep at night you Monster AMassiveGay (talk) 13:51, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I be Brit (as eg my reference above indicates) so no connection. Anna Livia (talk) 01:00, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

"Were there actual maps which had 'here be dragons'?" There were two globes made ~500 years ago that had the Latin "HIC SVNT DRACONES", but otherwise no (to current knowledge). "HIC SVNT LEONES" (here be lions) was supposedly a more common phrase used to designate unknown areas on medieval maps. And various real or mythological animals were often used to visually fill in areas of a page around the drawn map, though that was generally not a geographical representation. My mention of making dragons go away is a reference to the 1982 movie "The Flight of Dragons" in which science (the actual method and knowledge) is metaphysically opposed to fantastical things like magic and dragons, and the ascendency of science and technology in the modern era led to an exodus of fantastic elements from Earth which is completed with the events of the movie.

As AMassiveGay mentions, there are, of course, real wide-ranging conspiracies that may invoke the idea of trusting science to stifle criticism, but trust is antithetical to the method of science itself. Which is why I dug up a 40-year-old movie for an example of actual science being involved in something like that. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 09:54, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

The BMJ

I added the BMJ as an article suggestion. Though I'm of a mind to create it myself soon. This article from last year by David Gorski was critical of the BMJ's COVID vaccine coverage.

Have any of you noted strange things coming out the BMJ recently, particularly in their 'investigative journalism' department? I am wondering if this is becoming a more widespread emerging trend there, since I noted them uncritically citing, for a gender dysphoria article, the Florida AHCA this month which has been stacked with anti-gay Catholic Medical Association types by Ron DeSantis. Chillpilled (talk) 07:12, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Any problems with The Lancet, JAMA or The New England Journal of Medicine? I hope not. Spud (talk) 10:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Not anything that's reached my awareness, but they could be interesting to have pages on as well. All four are very old journals, and must have some history worth writing about. The age of these journals means that a lot of the content from their first decades will be in the public domain in the United States, too. In the case of NEJM and the Lancet, their whole first century. Chillpilled (talk) 11:31, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Unless we have a medicus on-call here, I suspect none of us would have the knowledge-base to actually really come up with enough content to make it bigger than a stub. One thing I do wonder, however, if the effort might be better spent in extending / updating [and perhaps adding an explanatory paragraph under each] RationalWiki:Scientific_journals. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

It's not exactly the same (younger and secondary reporting of science), but Science News had a coming-to-terms with past reporting that was racist (including support for eugenics), sexist and homophobic in old issues.[5] It takes a lot of effort to review everything that that was previously reported and to admit past wrongs by predecessors. Bongolian (talk) 21:16, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

The BMJ used to be one of the best journals in the world, it still is a good journal but they have made a lot of mistakes with their editors. James DiNicolantonio was formerly an Associate Editor of Nutrition for the British Medical Journal’s (BMJ) Open Heart journal. That is very shocking. Thankfully he no longer holds that position but he has published 4 crazy papers in the Open Heart Journal. DietResearcher (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Begun work on a new RW article: Wagner PMC

I just started so don't expect much. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 23:57, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

It's a worthy topic. You have my support. CorruptUser 00:59, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I've contributed a bit. Nice that my daily reading of the invasion from https://www.understandingwar.org/ is useful for something.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Perun put out a pretty good video about Wagner today might be useful for the article, or just an interesting listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXKUNc9yI2A SolPyre (talk) 02:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

70 years ago

Stalin died. 13 years before, on the same day, he ordered the NKVD to execute 25 thousand Polish war prisioners.

Bonus: 10 years ago Hugo Chávez died and 152 years ago Rosa Luxemburg was born. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 17:05, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Are you looking at some 'on this day in history' thing, or do you just have a good memory for dates?SolPyre (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Why include Rosa in that group? She wasn't an evil piece of shit. I don't understand the purpose of this post. Vee^Meow? 18:52, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

@SolPyre and Vee I just thought it was an interesting coincidence. Of course I'm not comparing Rosa and Stalin. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 19:06, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Also some commie friendly user really should wp:TNT our article on the Spartacist League. It's awful. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 19:09, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh, wait, actually, this is about a Trotskyist group. Then I'd say we need an article about the original Spartacus League. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 19:12, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

@GeeJayK Okay, I was just saying something to give you the option to expand on a topic you wanted to talk about. I thought you had some 'this day in history' web page you wanted to talk about or recommend. SolPyre (talk) 19:14, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I thought this was Rationalwiki - not 'Wikipedia: On this Day Discussion Group.' Anna Livia (talk) 19:38, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Sometimes it’s just fun to celebrate the death of an evil person. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:31, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Stop telling everyone else they have to conform to your limited perceptions!! Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 00:44, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Sinaloa Foot Soldier

I found a 10 minute documentary of footage filmed by a front-line Sinaloa Cartel foot-soldier with the nom de guerre of "Vagancia". Vee^Meow? 22:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Odd way that I am building confidence in my gender identity

I talk to myself in the mirror calling myself a dirty girl. Is that weird? --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 15:18, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Only if you think Autogynephilia is weird. Assuming you can overlook all the BS uses of that term, anyway. If you aren't harming anyone else by being attracted to the idea of yourself as whatever, it's not a paraphilia ergo acceptable. Otherwise, everyone is "weird". CorruptUser 16:07, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Talking with the gals in an Facebook trans women group, they said bringing out your sexuality is good for being confident in your gender identity. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 16:28, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

'There is a saying' - there is nothing wrong with talking to yourself - it is only when you start losing the argument that you should worry.

In reply to your comment it will depend upon what you associate with the term 'dirty girl' - is the persona that can do whatever (she) wants, uses language of choice etc and is 'free', while 'you this side of the mirror' has to be more straight-laced and 'clean': is the intention to one day be the dirty girl talking to the fuddy-duddy in the mirror? Anna Livia (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I guess you could say the dirty girl in me wants out. I admit that I have been allowing "her" to talk sexual to me. It feels good to be emotionally free. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Kinda ChocolateKok (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I’ll be the guy who says it’s weird, but I would think anyone who talks into a mirror is weird. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 22:34, 27 February 2023 (UTC) a

well it cant hurt and it can be a difficult thing to be able to say out loud who you or who you want to be, even when no one is around. it used to hard for me to just say 'i am gay' for the longest time. used to stick in my throat or make me feel super self conscious. do you have difficulty saying you are american? i guess no. if posing in front of the mirror calling themselves 'dirty girl' helps build confidence in themselves to be able to say it as naturally and unself-consciously as you would say 'i am american' then more power to rz.

and have you really never posed in front of mirror or talked to your reflection? not even once? that there is what would be really weird AMassiveGay (talk) 22:49, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

rz, keep saying it till you mean it, and keep saying it. be who are AMassiveGay (talk) 22:53, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

and watch the rocky horror show for inspiration. dont dream it, be it AMassiveGay (talk) 22:58, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I do those in the mirror enough that I have wondered whether it could be a symptom of NPD or something. I don't know what to make of the other talk above except that it reminds me a little bit of a repressed Catholic with certain fantasies making their way out. Chillpilled (talk) 05:30, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

It's only NPD if it interferes with other parts of Zombie's life. CorSock (talk) 05:36, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Was just speaking for myself there, regarding the "have you really never posed in front of mirror or talked to your reflection? not even once?" question. Chillpilled (talk) 05:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's odd at all. I have no idea what it's like coming to terms with being transgender. But looking at myself in the mirror and saying aloud, "Now there's a handsome man," can do a lot to help set me up for a good day. Spud (talk) 11:41, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

'reminds me a little bit of a repressed Catholic with certain fantasies making their way out.' the operative word in that statement is 'out'. as in 'coming out'. something lgbt folk are more than familiar. with all the repression one builds up, it doesnt just disappear the day you come out. its still a struggle to feel comfortable in your own skin. for some much more than others AMassiveGay (talk) 12:20, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

No, I don't think that it is weird. It is a real disadvantage to find yourself not in agreement with the standard vulgar understanding of gender one is likely to encounter. It is my understanding that gender confirmation is a consequence of social negotiation. That is to say, people unreflectively confirm their gender through interaction with others. One creates a kind of blank slate to create ones own idea of ones own gender identity. If this identity is not held in place or fixed by innate tendencies, then it is perhaps fluid and subject to contingent events. There is no law of biology that makes any of this necessary, yet it is psychologically necessary to have a stable understanding of ones self.

I don't pretend to understand what these tendencies are or, how they operate. But I think we are not in complete control of them. Just like when someone is attractive to you, it is not because you decided they are attractive, but because your aesthetic senses have reacted that way. Just like you have favorite flavors or colors. So you can look in the mirror and imagine who you are becoming, and how you will react to various social interactions. With enough insight you should know what the others in your life will think of you by speaking to yourself, that is, negotiating with yourself, to create an understanding of yourself. This understanding does not and can not exist before one begins to create it, by looking in the mirror. Ariel31459 (talk) 17:24, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

In the past I had no confidence in myself. But accepting my gender identity and presenting myself as a dirty slutty girl in the mirror is changing that. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 20:28, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Just be careful about actually being slutty. Intimacy as a form of self-validation is, well, it's not coming from a healthy place. CorSock (talk) 05:21, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Consider writing/developing some 'self-insert/Mary Sue fanfic of her in the mirror' with whatever 'Dead Dove' elements you fancy - give yourself whatever permission you need to explore (and to cease from exploring certain aspects). Anna Livia (talk) 19:22, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Where I come from 'weird' is generally considered to be a good thing. FairDinkum (talk) 11:15, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Republican party

Honestly I'm starting to feel really nervous about their future intentions, they have already shown to be capable of spreading misinformation on every subject with ease, an example would be the attack on Paul pelosi, within hours, notable Republicans said the incident was actually a fight between a drunk paul pelosi and a male prostitute and despite having absolutely no credible evidence to prove this it still spread like wildfire, what does everyone else think? ^{— Unsigned, by: 110.151.89.228 / talk / contribs}

This is disinformation, not misinformation. It is known to be false by its initiators as a way to either deceive their followers, or at least to spread confusion.Bongolian (talk) 01:30, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

You're good. Here in Serbia it's more insane.ASerb (talk) 13:36, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Misinformation and disinformation are primary issues, but I think the larger problem is that the GOP has no ideas. Like none, they have no policies, they have no record to run on, they are an insurgent power that acts irresponsibly when given power in government. So they resort to a culture war. LGBTIA rights are top of mind, intentionally exploiting the general populations lack of knowledge about Trans people specifically, but the larger movement as well. Abortion is a tried and true motivator for voters, but having succeeded in killing Roe, they need more things to target as the laws put in place after are increasingly unpopular even in blood-red Kansas and South Carolina. So they go after abortion pills, that are used across the globe with no issues. Currently the only "policies" the GOP are interested in is cuts to entitlements, people with basic math comprehension can see that the cuts they seek would do little to effect the deficit, let alone the debt. Additionally, they are wildly popular programs that despite the fear mongering, are currently sustainable. If they were actually concerned about Social Security insolvency, then they would support an increase of legal immigration, increasing the number working age people contributing to the system. Or they'd take a look at the three other old-age programs (IRA's, 401K's, pensions), where there are larger payouts and more money, that could handle a minor tax increase to raise more funds that increasing the retirement age.

The GOP is an unserious political party, that's what you should be afraid of.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:47, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

I think the MAGA-party do have ideas, it's just the same 'ol shit they've been pushing from the fringes since the 80s [sometimes, even earlier] which BobJ points out in the discussion above. My own examples; on re-visiting vaguely what demented Dominionists were saying in '22, it turned out to be the same shite I was hearing around '92 and what passes for 'economic policy' is simply simplistic ersatz Reaganomics [which was nearly 40 years ago]. The only things that have really changed since the Gipper is that 'trans' has replaced 'gay' as the 'enemy within', 'China' has replaced 'the Soviet Union' as the 'enemy without' and 'the internet' has replaced 'TV and music' as the 'means of indoctrination'.

The thing I would be afraid of is the fact they don't see the need to really 'expand their base' or to appeal to floating voters in a positive manner. That suggests that they're either too stupid to realise they're rooted in shrinking bases [white / Boomer / Dominionsts / rural / uneducated] or they don't think it matters. The former makes them dangerous because an idiot with a gun is scary. The latter is also dangerous because it suggests they plan to lie and cheat to get/keep power. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:48, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

One key difference is that the conspiracy nuts are, by and large, pretty firmly in the GOP camp. In the 1980s, the conspiracy nuts were mostly just thought of as, well, nuts and did not really tilt in one political direction (for every John Birch Society person complaining about fluoride you had some New Age person engaged in crystal woo). Not that there was occasional bows to the conspiracy dweebs back then, but it seems accelerated; I can't think anything politically comparable to the GOP's full embrace of the anti-vaccination movement.

I also think that the "think tank" side of the GOP got squashed pretty heavily with the Trump phenomenon. While a few of them like the Heritage Foundation aligned a bit with Trump, some of the others became part of that small circle of "never Trumpers". Many donors (such as The Big Koch) were not terribly thrilled with Trump, either. So basically part of the reason there are no new ideas is because no political thinker types are really around to generate any. (Not that this lot generated that many great ideas, mind you... these are the folks that brought you shit like supply-side economics and anti-climate change propaganda. Even at present, dog whistles like "critical race theory" and "woke" were brought to you by Manhattan Institute alum. So...)

The big worry to me is the authoritarian tilt; Trumpism seemed to expose that for some of this lot, power was much more important than democracy, and some of the evangelical / cultural right aligning with despots like Putin is something else. That being said, there has been a pretty nice amount of push-back against this in recent elections (with some exceptions, the insane and anti-democratic lost the last one). Maybe certain regions sympathetic to this sort of authoritarian shit will cling on, but all I see suggests that there is a "time limited" aspect to Trumpism (polls showing huge generation gaps in party affiliation; the decline of Christianity including evangelicals in America; etc.). The main consolation for the GOP "demographic problem" is that I don't think a lot of young people care much for the Democratic Party either... but that hasn't stopped people in many (not all, sadly) districts and states from voting out complete right-wing (or even other) whackadoodles when needed. BobJohnson (talk) 01:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

My take on KarmaPolice’s “the GOP either doesn’t realise or doesn’t care about a shrinking base” is a combination of both.

• The MAGA hats don’t realise it because they keep thinking that they are a sort of “natural majority forever”. This is also one reason why they turn to conspiracy theories when the numbers prove them incontrovertibly wrong.
• What we might call the “GOP operatives”, i.e. those who work tactically to leverage the party’s political power, don’t care, because they will attempt to gerrymander (incl. voter ID, disenfranchisement etc.) their way out of the shrinking base problem, as well as by controlling the SCOTUS and other (undemocratic) checks and balances in the system.

The two groups have teamed up on Trump’s “election fraud” BS with the “operatives” trying to leverage MAGA conspiracy theory fury into control of election certification to avoid future “Raffensperger moments”.

However, we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of the GOP to capitalise on anger and dissatisfaction with the political and economic system; especially as long as the Democrats pretend that there are no fundamental economic (or political) problems and that the Obama era was a wonderland of opportunity and prosperity for all.

In a two party system, frustrated voters who don’t think the status quo is working for them will look to “the other party” and the GOP has been successful before in crafting messages that will, at least for a time, convince some of these voters that the GOP is at least willing to try to change things. One example is that mainstream Democrats finally wised up and begin to express less than total and unconditional love for “free trade deals”, but only after Trump had used opposition to them quite effectively in 2016. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:01, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

- Yeah, we do have an 'inmates have taken over the asylum' situation with the party. Now, while there's been tendencies of this since [I'd guess] Nixon I'll put the time of true 'rot entry' being '08, when McCain basically gave the Tea Party loons houseroom [and the VP slot]. The other aspect not mentioned is the spread of smartphones; while earlier editions of crazies clearly used the SuperWeb I'd argue that for millions of Americans getting that Samsung etc was either a) the first time they had their own internet connection and/or b) the first time they'd shown real interest in actually using it for stuff. In retrospect, '16 was perhaps the first real 'social media' election; for at that point 77% of Americans had a smartphone. And that meant it was terribly easy for crazies to organise/recruit, practice 'entryism' on local Republican parties and so on.

- With the 'time-limited' nature of MAGA... I agree, but warn that there's nothing saying it can't evolve over time. If it eased up a bit on the racial elements and/or the 'cultural authoritarianism' it may be able to make significant inroads to non-white conservatives and white educated males [who often lean towards a 'don't tell me what to do!' libertarianism]. But the good news is that shite like Replacement Theory and Dominionism are strong elements of the creed and shall be difficult to excise.

- I believe the Democrats are currently a party in flux. The party's critical issue is that of age; like old Communist states, the upper echelons have become stuffed with seniors who seem to rarely either die or retire. Now, you can say that '70 is the new 60', laud the fact the party can tap so much wisdom and experience and so on but there are issues with having a gerontocracy - such as becoming imprisoned by your own past policies, losing touch with the realities of life of people who didn't like through the Cuban Missile Crisis and your caution calcifying into immobility. On the Democrat's side, this leadership is of the 'New Democrat' era which came of political age in the 80s/90s, and still lives in patholgical fear of being seen as 'socialists' in trying to tackle economic inequalities and perhaps incapable of consigning Third Way to the dustbin of history [credit where it's due, Old Joe does seem able to spot this issue and make a bit of headway on it].

Thinkpiece on subject; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/19/us-congress-presidency-gerontocracy KarmaPolice (talk) 13:55, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree that the parties are in flux right now, but argue that the reason for that is the GOP being firmly controlled by the Birchiest bunch of loons since the Birchers. American politics since 2010 is largely directed by monied interests that basically wanted less regulation and taxes, not really caring about anything else. But the GOP's rising populism is a threat to them, so you have the Club For Growth supporting several Democrats in 2022. The Dems have always had a populist bend, which is also ascendant, but is clashing with more centrist members of the party. The olds are a problem in both parties, but Millennials are not becoming more conservative. That threatens the future of the GOP.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 23:40, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I think it's more factional than that; the MAGA golf-cart filled with sectors like mining/extractives, dirty energy, real estate, the more speculative end of finance [inc crypto], Big Ag, some cheapo ends of retail/hospitality etc. The sorts who's business plan doesn't need an actual decently functioning economy and/or relies on practices which are patently against with the 'wider interest' of America.Inc in general. MAGA then wraps this up in the parcel of 'this is what [all] businesses need', while a lot of businesses keep quiet because they don't desire to get the ire of the red-hats or their demagogues. [I think 'the olds' are an issue here too; in that the 'Boomer Bosses' are much more likely to be the 'homeworking isn't real / work harder for more hours / do as I say' stamp and thus, find MAGA's authortarianism personally appealing.]

With the 'Millennials are not becoming more conservative' line, it makes me wonder why the hell that shite ever flew in the first place. My own theory is that generally speaking it's not the folks who change, it's the society; that the stuff which was 'progressive' in the 90s/00s is now mainstream [and thus, has become the 'neutral' setting]. And the charts showing 'society is getting more liberal' is normally due to the Grim Reaper 'trimming' off a group which is statistically most likely to be conservative/reactionary. But one line is true; older people vote more. And Millennials are now approaching their early middle age.

But stats speak a lot more than words. Here is three;

Party ID by Generation, 2022.

Political Power by Generation, 2016 - 2032

Generational Polling for 2020 election.

Now, if you accept my theory above, it would appear the '24 election shall hinge on two factors; Millennial turnout and floating Xers. My napkin shows that if '20 voting patterns follow into '24, the MAGA 'hill' shall be between 0.5 - 1% harder to climb. '28 shall be the 'final reckoning' as that hill had grown again by 1 - 1.5%.

Another thinkpiece on the topic; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-is-happening-to-the-republicans KarmaPolice (talk) 10:22, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

KarmaPolice there is an RW page on what you referred to. FairDinkum (talk) 11:09, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I am no longer a young-Earth creationist

Yes I no longer am.

Of course I am still a follower of Jesus and a "conservative" in the eyes of others, but conservative Christianity doesn't need young-earth creationism. I have a stance of Gotquestions.org, in which they say old earth creationists (like me) are NOT rejecting the Bible.

Have a nice day!

Joseph D. Pelobello/Daniel William "Danny" Wilson 07:38, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

One step at a time... FairDinkum (talk) 10:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. Dropping wrong beliefs one at a time is the way to go.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 13:19, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Hey there. Good for you, I respect when a person can come out and say they were wrong about something. I think it's interesting that you said that conservative Christianity does not "need" YEC anymore. If it did need it to make sense internally, would you still believe it? NastyNugget (talk) 13:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Good for you, it's a first step. Next, I'd take a look at the mythologies of other religions like Egypt and in Asia to either reinforce your faith or humble it when you see the parallel evolution of other religions. There is a lot of evidence that Christianity used to be polytheistic and that it borrowed heavily from earlier existing religions, in the same way that languages borrow words from older dead languages. 2607:FB90:ED26:51:118E:155B:F9EB:412B (talk) 03:48, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Jim Bowie draft

So I've written this gigantic draft on Jim Bowie. If anyone wants to pitch in it'd be appreciated. I've hit writer's block. Vee^Meow? 17:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

It's good enough for mainspace. You'll get more interest there. Bongolian (talk) 19:12, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

conservatives are so unfunny

I hate their political cartoons they look so bad their memes are also bad all they do is overuse pepe, wojack, SJW cringe compilations and the same generic democrats bad. Islamists and hindu nationalists are cringe too. ←§ Edward the eight (talk) 12:47, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

No doubt more leftist or liberal themed political cartoons would look dumb to conservatives. Such cartoons play to their audience and feed them their truths and rally the troops. The real problem is not that they are unfunny, it's that alot of truths are dogshit and that they really believe that dogshit they will say any thing at all, no matter how patently insane and nonsensical if its said shouting down the opposition for no other reason to silence them. There more than our fair share of this kind of idiocy from our own true believers nland that's depressing enough. But right wing talking points, from republican politicians, UK conservative MPs, all manner of paid for talking heads and professional opinion havers, coming out with the most flagrant lies and hot takes at the expense of any kind of grand plan or attempt to debate the facts of an issue, or win arguments. It's all victory or death. No room for compromises and victory is solely to shut down opposition and halt progress to anything supportive of their ideological enemies. Some one mentioned this elsewhere in the saloon bar - they really have nothing else. They would rather see us all burn than concede at a point, compromise or recognise the basic humanity of people that they are opposed to. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:20, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

The same could be said about leftwing cartoons. All political cartoons suck, because all ideologues are fools in this world of nuanc. CorSock (talk) 21:35, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

As a counterpoint, though not an explicitly political cartoon, I wouldn't describe South Park as apolitical, and it somewhat leans "conservative" (more libertarian actually) due to that being the general political leanings of their creators. I'll add a disclaimer that I'm not a huge regular viewer; of the times I've caught it, I personally find the show occasionally preachy. But it can be very funny too.

The problem the type of "conservative humor" you are talking about is that it is a "punch-down" style that largely leans on attacking marginalized groups for "humor". Generally speaking, this type of humor is very cheap. The best humor tends to either be self-deprecating, or be "punching up" at absurdities of society or those in power.

The other problem with this type of "conservative humor" you are talking about is that it is basically an all-or-nothing devotion to a bunch of tired right-wing cliches or memes; it tends to be very repetitive. Compare Doonesbury, which is quite a liberal political cartoon, but at least for a time (haven't really checked lately) had some neat characters and plots and wasn't afraid to skewer liberal politicians every now and then too. I can easily see a conservative Doonesbury being possible, but less so these days with so much of modern "conservatism" being reactionary and overly angry. BobJohnson (talk) 22:39, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

"Punching Down", pfeh.

If something is Absurd and True, it's Funny. Both the Left and Right want Absurd things to become accepted as Normal so they want to prevent people even noticing the Absurdities; "punching down" is just the easiest way for the Left to protect its Absurd just as "communism" is for the Right. NOTHING should be off limits from humor, because we need to expose the Absurd wherever it may lay. CorruptUser 03:57, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Nothing is off limits, you can do what you want. But if your style is punching down, George Carlin can school you on why this isn't funny.

(There certainly is absurdities on the left, but that's not what I refer to. I tend to unfortunately associate the unfortunately hijacked Pepe meme with single brain cells that use ethnic slurs as punctuation.) BobJohnson (talk) 04:39, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

IIRC, Carlin was the one who said that "political correctness is fascism pretending to have manners", so... CorruptUser 05:25, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

If people want to be assholes, let them. In the same vein, people have the right to criticize you for being an asshole. That comment is a strawman. Vee^Meow? 09:27, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, I'm not afraid to be an asshole then. I'm not going to make fun of, e.g., Black people for listening to music I don't listen to or dressing in a manner that is different from my own, because that's just cultural stuff and not Bullshit. But when there is Bullshit? Then you're a target. CorruptUser 19:47, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Punching down is when people make fun of others for their culture, or their disabilities, or their gender identity/sexual orientation, or their class status etc. Vee^Meow? 19:49, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

It's also not absurd to be poor, gay, disabled, Hindu, etc. You need a lot more than "haha look at those queers" to make a good joke. CorSock (talk) 00:04, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

CorUser, FWIW when quoting someone talking about "political correctness" we should keep in mind that the definition of that phrase has changed several times. Originally it referred to changing dehumanizing terms that describe people to neutral ones (such as using "mentally disabled" rather than "retarded"). Under that definition political correctness was nothing new; the terms "idiot" and "moron" were at one time scientific terms that fell out of favor for the same reasons. Over time the term "Politically Correct" changed to refer to expresssion-stifling euphemisms, and still later, more recently, it has simply become an alt-right dogwhistle that refers to portraying opposition to their desire to be mean and gross to be unreasonable because it's "woke" and can get you "cancelled".

So quoting George Carlin's statement about Political Correctness that he stated at a time before the current definition was established should at least warrant a context disclaimer. FairDinkum (talk) 11:01, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ see [6] for a great analysis of the un-funniness of conservative humor. The whole channel is a gold mine, really. 149.19.41.100 (talk) 14:19, 7 March 2023 (UTC)Bumpf

Developing a general point out of this particular example, I think there's a general maxim which goes roughly 'orthodox thinkers make poor creatives'. There's many other examples of where 'the pius' seem to perform serious fails; be it Stalinist 'Agitprop' theatre, the works of Ayn Rand or Christian fiction [or even music] - and the link tells us partly why. They're works where ideological conformity overrides simple creative [or sometimes even technical] excellence and 'pushing a message' overrides the usual desires to create. Sure, creatives can [and do] have their own beliefs and 'causes', but quite often you'll find them a somewhat 'heretical' in ideology and with their own respect 'as a creative' as big or bigger than what they believe in - this includes 'not selling out to pander to a particular interest' and 'being able to look at your own side as critically as the others'.

Which is where the 'Conservative™ Comedian' comes into the room. They generally suck because they're there to preach at you, not make you laugh. This means their technical quality is often poor, and well poking fun in 'the libs/etc' is a lazy, little-effort way to get laughs. But they're not really there to get laughs; they're there to simply provide a bit of moral validation towards their echo-chamber's existing views. Which is in fact the primary, true purpose for much of the above; providing validation to the base for their crappy views. I mean, there's enough progressive stupidity/moonbattery to poke a wry smirk at, an easily-found example today being The Daily Mash's 'Patriarchy collapses after teenage boy paints nails' but you do need actual talent to make it actually funny. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh, that totally not altie Ben Garrison also said 'political correctness is fascism pretending to have manners'. This might be one of those things [like 'it's okay to be white'] that it's worth looking up at the general useage and origin of the term/line before using it yourself. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:12, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Is that really moonbattery? Boys painting their nails is a deliberate rejection of cisheteronormative roles, a la the patriarchy. It's not the "end" of the patriarchy by any means, but any act of rebellion, no matter how small, counts. In order to change society, you have to change minds first. Vee^Meow? 16:29, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not moonbattery in this case, more stupidity [thinking 'painted nails' shall make everything fine overnight]. I mean, it's not nothing, but in the grand scheme of things it means very little, which is shown by a) his parents didn't care one jot on the gender-norms front and b) the paintee called a female friend a slag because she criticised the quality of said paint-job. However, a 'Conservative™ Comedian' wouldn't have ever been that subtle - they'd have turned it into some mini-screed against 'woke' or 'gender neutral' or some shite [or at least, made the punchline much more vicious]. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:58, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's a genuine representation of actual progressive views. It's just clickbait. Vee^Meow? 17:14, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

As an example to Karma's point... I certainly can think of good music with heavy Christian themes (a lot of classical music comes to mind, same with the gospel tradition and many pop songs), along with good music made by Christians without said themes. Modern "Christian rock" however often is quite bad. I do think one of the reasons is the genre (being tied to fundamentalism) seems to be too rigid thematically and can't get beyond tepid "we praise Jesus" tropes. (A lot of CCM is also pretty boilerplate musically, not that a lot of pop isn't the same though these days.) Several rock musicians who are Christian thus distance themselves from the CCM genre as a result.

The Babylon Bee is one of those sites that fell into the current American "conservative comedy" trap. Occasionally they sneak a funny through, but mostly nowadays they recycle the Fox News talking points of the day; instead of the yelling you get on Fox News, you get the same tired points delivered with a sneer. You can't make good art by parroting propaganda, authoritarian regimes have proved that time and time again (that goes for the "left" authoritarians, too, so I think a lot of this is more of a "authoritarian rigidity" problem than an ideological one). I remember when the site first launched it was a lot funnier, eg it actually poked fun at some of the absurdities in evangelical religion from time to time (even though it was clearly conservative). Admittedly I don't check very often, but I have not encountered that sort of ability to poke fun at oneself whenever I have; today's page even has some "lol women pilots" "jokes" straight out of 1950s gender roles to top off the generally rather unfunny "punching down" and boilerplate themes. BobJohnson (talk) 17:24, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay, my example is hardly going to be entered into the history of comedy - it's quite literally, the only example which I knew existed at that moment and knew exactly where it resided too. However, I stand by my general point above.

But BobJ's hit the general point. That there is nothing stopping a Christian making 'good music', or even making 'Christian-themed music', the issue is when 'Christian™ Music' is made. That due to the welter of ideological constraints [in my experience, most ideologues are pretty intolerant to 'heretical/heathen' views] nothing new or interesting can really be 'said', 'uncomfortable truths' can never be admitted and has to be expressed in a manner which brooks no 'misinterpretation' in meaning. In this respect, CCM can be compared to say, Socialist Realism - ie propaganda pieces. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

@Karma

Except that it is possible to be both Creative and Traditionalist; the contradiction has always been being Creative and Conformist. Conformism was once almost exclusively on the Right, which caused the Creatives to be "locked out" and thus the artists and playwrights were always a hotbed of filthy commies. Yet more social change is brought about by art than we give credit; the Superman radio show did more to kill the Klan than any Civil Rights group, to say nothing of the Power of Rock'n'Roll. Today, we are seeing more and more Conformism from the Left, whereas the Right is increasingly embracing non-Conformism even if they are still the more Conformist of the two ends. As this trend continues, more and more comedians, artists and other creatives will find themselves "locked out" of the Left, and if you thought the Right was a problem before, just imagine a world in which they actually do have good writing and story-telling on their side. CorruptUser 20:04, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Please, go and re-read what I've already said on this topic, Corrupt. I never said it was only 'the right' / 'traditionalism' doing this. Never denied that 'creatives' had the power to influence - if they did not have power, authoritarians [of all stripes] wouldn't be so obsessed with trying to control/silence them [QED]. You seem to have utterly missed the crux of my draft theory; is that 'creatives' in general find it difficult/impossible to be ideologically 'pure' regardless to what that ideology is if they'd like to perform at their 'peak creativity'.

Aaaand your 'false balance' stuff can be safely ignored. I've never seen this big, powerful and monolithic bloc called 'the Left' operating in the general creatives realm. All my experiences to date have shown me that the vast majority of big 'creative outlets' in the Anglosphere are controlled by corp interests and thus, tack what I'd consider to be around the centre of the public's mores and views. Yes, there is an element of 'groupthink' in the creatives, but that's due to the fact that it's overwhelmingly white, bourgeoisly middle-class and often from a rather narrow band of 'training grounds'. What's more, within groups of creatives it can get pretty 'cliquey' [and thus bitchy] and yes, this involves greater groupthink, greater conformity and so on. If I would accuse them of any conscious 'crime' on this front, it would be a somewhat poor ability to stand up against the more demented loudmouth end of the social media mobs. But then again, this isn't anything new either - Socrates was cancelled [permanently] by an Athenian mob and generally speaking, those who should have known better allowed it to run it's course. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

It's actually easy to think of artists of some influence who were or are politically on the "right" and yet still were critically acclaimed, so I'm not sure what that blurb was about. The TV series 24 for instance was widely praised for at least the first few seasons (at least one co-creator, Joel Surnow, is openly conservative "American style"). Same with Orson Scott Card (haven't read his stuff, but at least his early books seem to be ranked very highly). In fact, depending on how you think of "left" and "right", I can pretty easily conjure up a (way too simplistic) argument that in certain disciplines, the art of "the right" has actually trended towards a massive quality decline. (I'll just go with Christian music here: compare Johann Sebastian Bach to, er, the "music" of Hillsong...)

From my perspective though, a lot of the better entertainers are not easily politically classifiable (if they venture into politics at all, that is). Try to assign a "political label" to George Carlin, for instance; other than a touch of anarchism perhaps and some unfortunate nihilism in his late grumpy stage, it's IMHO rather tough, despite Carlin including politics in many of his routines. That's really the problem with dividing entertainment into "left" and "right" in modern American terms, just this alone evokes tired tropes that don't reflect any real deep thoughts. It's most likely going to suck if you try and force "dumb politics" from this artificial "culture divide" into a work. BobJohnson (talk) 01:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Orson Scott Card is, well... Mormonism is weird. It's Fanatacism, sure, but of a different sort and much more creatively-open than many others, and has produced quite a few Sci-Fi writers and inventors; maybe that's just what happens when you build a society without alcohol. On the one hand, Mormons are so vehemently against homosexuality that I wouldn't put it past them to round up the entire rainbow and herd them into the Jesus-camps if they ever had the power to do so, which basically makes them as socially conservative as you get. Not to mention that their book apparently requires them to commit a form of genocide against my people specifically, but they are hardly unique in that matter. But in terms of their economics, from what I understand their ideal is actually communal ownership (at least between Mormons), and they are actually slightly more Collectivist than Individualist. I'm not even sure where that would place them politically. CorruptUser 05:41, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Not for the first time, BobJ nails the point. Corrupt's right/left simplistic pigeon-holery is a pile of crap - be it 'right' or 'left'. Take for example, the Catholic Church. Now, socially it may sign on to a lot of 'the Right's' talking points but it does not agree with the vulgar Prosperity Gospel as touted by Fundie Protestants and actively objects to white supremacism. But on your 2-D metre-stick, they're all 'the Right'. Similar can be said of Mormons. What's more, you seem to utterly ignore the fact that you have a lot of Catholics who are in varying levels of 'lapsed' [from the looks of it, a decent % of Catholic women are ignoring the Church's teachings on many topics] and there is a similar level of lipservice-ry in Mormonism too. And other religions. Applying it to historical creatives is even more stupid. I mean, many early/mid 19th 'progressives' may have felt slavery was wrong, but it's much less likely they felt that the two races were equal. Similar can be said towards progressives a century later regarding women. Hell, even TV Tropes realises the 'fair for it's day' situation on this! KarmaPolice (talk) 11:31, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Catholic women not happy with the church's stances on certain issues

There you have it. To me, seems like it warrants more attention than a WIGO entry. Chillpilled (talk) 15:35, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Non pay-walled version. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Alas for them the Catholic Church runs a 1-man 1-vote management system, and that 1 man lives in the Vatican and doesn't care how many people disagree with him. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 20:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that view is kinda simplistic. That 'one man in the Vatican' is the head of the most successful organisation in human history - one which has managed to survive through countless turmoils, repeated external threats and many a drastic societal shift and technological change. And a major part of it's 'secret sauce' is that it has the ability to evolve with the times, often in a manner which makes it not really look like it's moved at all. To work out what bits are vital to 'dogma' [ie the essance of the faith] and which are not, what bits of practice works and what doesn't in the current world and so on. There shall be worried heads within the Church who do wonder whether some of the things driving away 'Western Women' are frankly, not theological hills the Church should die on - often going in tandem with concerns that the Church seems too obsessed with image and remaining hidebound to tradition and far too unconcerned with actually doing, y'know in tackling poverty, calling out injustices and so on. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Dilbert

Since no one else is talking about it...

Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, apparently came out as a White Separatist. As a result, he was "cancelled"; the major newspapers dropped his comic. But for me, having listened to some of his speeches in the past, the interesting bit is just HOW he turned into a Douchebert. Do I think he's right in his recent tirade? No. Do I think he's a person that can be "saved" from his sins? Not likely. But Racism is a lot like Crime in that, sure, we can chalk Racism up to "Personal Responsibility", and sure, once a person crosses a certain line they are often not worth attempting to save, but a good sociologist will ask what kind of society produces Racists/Criminals.

When he was a young nobody working in a cubicle farm in the '80s, he was (allegedly) told that he would never be promoted because the company had too many white men in middle/upper management. Again, I don't know how true that is; today, I'd never be able to tell someone I made the hiring or promotion decision based on their race even though it's done all the fricken time, but I'm not sure how it was back then. Regardless, whether he was told or just assumed that he was passed over for promotion by less qualified/experienced coworkers based on race, that seems to have been something that caused him to harbor resentment.

I believe there are good reasons we put Affirmative Action into law. Is AA a "net good"? Probably. But a "net good" does not mean there aren't consequences of these laws, and if we simply dismiss people's grievances with "just shut up", well, we should expect more Scott Adamses to be produced every single year. Every law or service has some tradeoff, but I don't see how adding a permanent source of racial grievance can ever result in a society without racism. CorruptUser 00:55, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Adams is a privileged overmonied whiny racist manchild who experienced the career equvialent of a toe stub, worst possible scenario, doesn't deserve a response besides "just shut up". Why are you turning this petulant white man's persecution fetish over what's certainly an embellished account of missing a promotion into a jaq-offy dig at affirmative action? "Affirmative action is good but it may have been the thing some whiteys blame on for not getting a promotion so therefore please consider the downsides of that". --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄

In case anyone missed it, our Scott Adams page was updated with this information.[7] As for the claim of Adams being passed over for promotion based on race, it fails the baloney test on two counts: 1) no independent confirmation and 2) By his own later admission he has no particular talent, he is essentially mediocre in a few things. His talent as he later claimed was to put his mediocre skills together to make himself succeed. I can't remember where I read #2, but it's out there somewhere. Bongolian (talk) 01:35, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Scott Adams really didn't start getting weird until somewhere between the mid-2000s; 2011 probably marked a big turning point (this was the year of the "Metafilter sockpuppet incident" as well as the "compare women to children and mentally handicapped" blog incident). All of his affirmative action comments date to his "insane blogging" period and therefore I do not consider them reliable, as Adams has not been a reliable narrator for a while.

Believe it or not, I think Dilbert was sorta-chuckle-worthy for a time (in the 1990s in particular). It never was a classic like, say, Calvin and Hobbes, but it had a few more laughs then a lot of the newspaper comic section (with too much tired, regurgitated gags) did. Adams hasn't had a real cubicle-farm job since the 1990s, though, and it shows as the strip got increasingly stale. Even more painfully, the comic lately has slowly been drifting into Mallard Fillmore ("I Forgot to Tell a Joke!") territory. I kinda wonder if a lot of editors were glad for this "excuse" to give Dilbert the boot. BobJohnson (talk) 01:59, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I actually used to like Dilbert back when it made fun of corporate nonsense trends and office politics, but the quality started tanking along with Adams’ sanity. 2010s era Dilbert was just boring and unfunny, and then it became political hackery.Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 02:17, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I had one of his comic books back in the day. Never got into the tv show, but I did see one episode and found it hilarious... because they had a joke about being sent to upstate NY being a fate worse than death. I looked up the cast of the show, holy crap Tom Kenny, Maurice LaMarche, Jason Alexander, Dan "Marv" Stein, Danny Elfman? Seriously, this was an A-list cast and the show should've been a success; somebody, either an exec or the writers screwed up. CorruptUser 04:02, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

- The event itself; https://www.npr.org/2023/02/27/1159822857/newspapers-drop-dilbert-over-creators-racist-remarks

- It's a chicken/egg situation here; did the syndicator drop Dilbert first, or did loads of newspapers try to wiggle out of their contracts to have Dilbert [reports were he was dropped by about ~70 last year over such issues]. We'll never know that; but what we do is that Adams has been increasingly 'difficult' a contributor since I believe around 2014.

- With the 'you'll never be promoted...' line, I could see that really happening. Hell, it was the '80s and it might have been a wry off-cuff comment from an older manager, perhaps one who's just been givien the first proper orders on AA / diversity training [responding like Ron Burgandy did on hearing the term]. Or the manager might have just a sexist/racist sod. Or he may have been lying, knowing that he had blackballed the request [Adams freely admitted in the 90s he was incompetent/useless as an employee] but wished to shift the blame? Tell me, old Dilbert readers; would you put it past classic Pointy-Haired Boss to do any of these?

- The 'staleness' is more Adam's fault than anything else; [at least in the 90s] he was constantly send tons of material via email from said cube-dwellers. It's not stupid to assume this flow continued into the 00s. However, part of the issue is that of Adam's own mediocre skill as a writer; for example, the Pointy-Haired Boss became superficially 'nicer' over the decades while Dilbert went from obliviousness to full-blown jerkassery [perhaps even verging on incel; I've not read Dilbert properly since ~2011 when I left cube-land and I refused to buy the Daily Diana to read it]. If nothing else, he's missed/forgot the cardinal rule of writing; you've got to make the 'protagonist' likable, or at least sympathetic [which I believe was the importance of early Wally; he was Dilbert's foil].

- The TV show should have continued; judging from that era, I would say it was about as strong as both Futurama and American Dad [I'd actually say it was stronger than Family Guy]. There were some 'kinks' which needed working out [story arcs didn't really work, for example] but it had 'good bones'. But it died because it was on a too-weak network, who 'screwed it over' by either bouncing it over the schedules or worse, had it follow a stinker [bad for a new TV show in a linear era; Monty Python for example hated the BBC for similar actions]. But the kicker was that it only had 30 episodes; this meant that there was 'not enough' for American syndication - the thing which later saved Family Guy [it had 50 on first cancellation, which was just enough for 'stripping' of reruns]. If it had been ~2005, there's a good chance it may have been picked up by Adult Swim/Comedy Central.

- 'This [decapitation] is still better than Albany'.

- KarmaPolice (talk) 12:38, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that Dilbert's tie only goes flat if he ever has sex. Considering that it's always curled up, he's not storming the trenches, so to speak. His main problem, aside from being a doughy middle aged guy with little money, is that every time he goes on a date he mocks his date for not being as smart as him. CorruptUser 14:38, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

That seems to be a bit of an "author insert" (though Adams is plenty rich). Adams may like to come across as the "smartest guy in the room", but all descriptions of his personal life that I've heard suggests that his ability to maintain a relationship with the opposite sex has, er, flattened over time. Sort of inverting with his increasing social media boorishness over time, in fact. So, he's not as smart as he thinks he is. This pattern is not unlike the only major figure I've heard defend Adams, come to think of it... BobJohnson (talk) 15:19, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Adams was also dating some girl half his age who looks like the type that could marry younger and wealthier men if she so chose. So he couldn't have been a complete boor. CorruptUser 15:44, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

That would probably be Scott Adams' second wife Kristina Basham, now an ex-wife after two years. Guess Adams can't even "rob cradles" right. BobJohnson (talk) 16:11, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

She was beautiful and left him even though he was wealthy, which isn't surprising when you know how he is acting. I think I remember reading Scott Adam's had a stroke before the world knew he had gone crazy. 2607:FB90:ED26:51:118E:155B:F9EB:412B (talk) 03:51, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Should I remove a link to Dilbert Wiki?

As an admin on Peanuts Wiki, should I remove a link to Dilbert Wiki from its main page? Spud (talk) 09:06, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Why? Dilbert exists and continues to exist. What do the folks at the wiki itself think of this shitshow? KarmaPolice (talk) 12:54, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

The folks at Dilbert Wiki? Nothing! I don't think anybody's edited it for 3 years. And their page on Scott Adams s a truly pathetic one-sentence stub that hasn't been edited since 2016. Spud (talk) 15:00, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

The DW home page is [8] ('many other fandoms available') - and there are a few wtories on Archive of Our Own (AO3). Anna Livia (talk) 16:17, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and removed the link to Dilbert Wiki from the main page of Peanuts Wiki. I also resigned as an admin on the J.K. Rowling Adult Fiction Wiki two years ago. If that makes me part of cancel culture, so be it.

And @Anna Livia, what the fuck were you trying to say? Spud (talk) 13:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

In case there are some weird people who actually wish to go to the DW main page ('being a pedant in such matters' is a harmless affectation). Anna Livia (talk) 11:40, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Eh, even if you're mad at Rowling maybe you should have stayed because a terrible and unscrupulous person might take over. 2607:FB90:ED26:51:118E:155B:F9EB:412B (talk) 03:40, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't care. People can vandalize it or do whatever they like to it. Anyway, I was made an admin there against my wishes and before I'd ever edited it by the founder. He knew me from another wiki. I'd never read any of the novels Rowling wrote as Robert Galbraith. I started reading The Casual Vacancy but couldn't get into it and gave up when I was a third of the way through. So I was really never qualified to be an admin there in the first place. Spud (talk) 14:40, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Policy changes logging suggestion

I recently reverted an elimination of strike-out snark and was informed by the person whose edit I reverted that at some point it had been agreed upon that strike-out snark is to be eliminated. I took that user's word for it, but subsequent actions by that user made me no longer trust them to make accurate statements about, well, anything. My suggestion is that there should be a page where policy changes get logged. If such a page already exists I'd appreciate a link because I can't find one. FairDinkum (talk) 10:45, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Unlike the the decision to move away from Conservapedia-centric stuff there was no formal decision (that I can remember) to drop things like tumbleweeds and strikeouts - both of which were very common when the site began. Nevertheless there seemed to be a general consensus quite a few years that we had had enough of them as they were perhaps overdone and maybe childish.

(But times and users change.) If a formal policy decision had been made then the only place it would have been recorded is RationalWiki:Community Standards, if it had been style decision then Help talk:Manual of style.

Having said that, traditionally, not all our style and policy decisions have been written down and many are unwritten conventions from the old days. You should probably read the article, "Mobocracy" for a bit more of the ancient history.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:43, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree. If there is a proliferation of policies and pages to track them, then RationalWiki will turn into a big bureaucracy with an oversized administrative arm. And it will also have lots of wikicops to enforce the myriad of rules. And once that happens, there is no reversing it. That is one of the problems with Wikipedia. Begit45 (talk) 14:53, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

You just registered. How would you even know about how this site works? Or is this Ken again? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I know how Wikipedia works. And someone posted the RationalWiki:Community Standards and "Mobocracy" links above. Begit45 (talk) 15:57, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

There have been some people who have lurked for a long time before registering. Bongolian (talk) 20:47, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I have been here for years but when I make new accounts I forget the passwords. And I have few qualms about leaving an IP. 2607:FB90:ED26:51:118E:155B:F9EB:412B (talk) 03:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Bob, for a thorough explanation. As far as strike-out snark is concerned, some of it is pretty weak but some of it is perfect, in my opinion. The one I referred to that I reverted was weak, and my revert was reverted, so that worked out OK. My personal policy is to only revert an edit once and if someone reverts or undos my revert I'm fine with that.

To the other responders: I was not suggesting a list of rules, but rather a list of what governments and corporations would call 'initiatives', meaning recommendations. But I don't think such a list necessarily needs to be on its own page, it could be incorporated in the Manual of style page that Bob posted a link to. There's not much on that page and it would probably be a good use for it.

And re:lurking for a long time before creating an account, that describes me fairly well, I commented on quite a few talk pages as a BoN, in fact I even realized that I recently unknowingly replied to a comment that I later realized was actually mine as a BoN. Not surprisingly, I totally agreed with myself! FairDinkum (talk) 08:19, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Walking Dead.

Who here thinks the walking dead is bad and why? ^{— Unsigned, by: 49.197.145.144 / talk / contribs}

I read the comics for a bit, never saw the show. I just felt that the story always came up with some bs excuse why something bad had to happen. I felt the non-main characters fell into one of two camps: 1) naive zombie fodder or 2) cartoonishly evil with no redeeming qualities. It got tiring quickly. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 09:34, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I saw the show and it was boring. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 12:33, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

But it was so exciting to see "hey we need something that's way over there where the zombies are!!!" every froggen time. CorSock (talk) 13:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Idk i played the first chapter of the telltale game it was pretty solid entertainment Servasym ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:39, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

The Telltale game is solid but I have to second Mirror's input on the show in general. I can't stand the series for the most part. "Even with a common enemy humanity still finds a way to fuck eachother over" is a pretty depressing message.--Moonsidecourier (talk) 05:40, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I was really into Dawn and Day of the Dead zombie movies from the 80s when I was a teenager, and I was long over zombies by the time Walking Dead came around. I watched the first season of Walking Dead and a few of the later seasons. I found it mildly entertaining but it took forever to get going and every episode was pretty silly. I remember one episode where some of the characters were seeking shelter at a church from a mob of zombies, and the zombies moved so slowly, giving them ample time to get into the church, while two other characters were in a house trying to escape zombies who had managed to enter the house, so the characters ran into the basement but the zombies were right behind them, which means those zombies moved ten times faster than the ones at the church. The whole show was like that, with variable 'zombie time', but that particular episode with those two scenes shown in sequence made it especially ridiculous.

And because the show came from a comic book, it played out like a comic book with endless crisis->resolution plots. And the endless scenes of someone scared of the zombies walking backwards and tripping over something so that the zombies would get them or almost get them. All the fake american accents were annoying. But even the best TV shows kind of suck, Breaking Bad was pretty stupid after the first two seasons, and even The Sopranos final season was dull. FairDinkum (talk) 08:41, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Racist Lynching in Mexico

It seems to be a minor news story, but honestly, I think it should be bigger. 4 Americans went to Mexico for cheap cosmetic surgery. The whole issue of medical tourism is a whole separate topic. All four Americans were Black, and one of the cartels mistook them for Haitian smugglers. Seeing the competition, they were kidnapped. Three people have been murdered that we know of; two of the Americans and one bystander during the kidnapping. All because they had the wrong skin color. CorruptUser 14:18, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

There was another incident a couple years back, when a group of Mexican Mormons were shot dead by a cartel group that thought they were competition. Almost nobody paid attention to it up here. Vee^Meow? 16:38, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

It's actually gotten reasonably significant amount of coverage from what I see, the dominant angles in news seeming to be what should have been well known to all before this incident though: A) American medical care is extremely overpriced, so medical tourism exists, and has for a while; and B) Mexico has some unfortunately rather dangerous states to travel to, thanks to kidnapping and other crime; in particular most border states are not the safest places these days, and it's unfortunately been that way for a while too. The US state department's warning level for Tamaulipas (the state where the kidnapping happened) was "do not travel"

I haven't seen anything on the motives of the attackers (or even who did it) other than the "mistaken for Haitian drug smugglers" angle as well as speculation that the perpetrators were part of a cartel. BobJohnson (talk) 17:09, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

The healthcare they were seeking was cosmetic; it's the essential stuff that's overpriced. The four biggest reasons for expensive healthcare are that something around a third of all medicine is only done to cover the doctor's anus in case things go south, the whole complicated bureaucracy and nonsense that is medical billing, the Byzantine record-keeping that is done, and the fact that ultimately doctors and nurses are paid more in the US than they are in the 3rd world. Cosmetic care skips the insurance nonsense entirely, and the record-keeping is much simpler, which is why the average cost for a boob job is less thank $5k but giving birth is more than $10k. CorruptUser 17:37, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Among the reasons for the extreme prices in US healthcare, in addition to those mentioned above, are also the concentration of the “healthcare business” into oligopolies and the absurd ban on the public programmes negotiating better prices on medicine with the suppliers (as is routinely done in pretty much any other country). ScepticWombat (talk) 05:20, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

That's the Pharmacy side, not Medical, though Rx has now become so expensive it's around 1/4th the cost and rising. The smart thing the US could do is reform the rebate system so that if Company X1 is charged $500 for a drug, the pharmaceutical may not charge anyone else more than $600 for it. Another possibility is to say that if drug X is available in France for $200, if they sell it in the US for more than $250 they lose their patent protections. Or perhaps that if they sell it in France for $200, then ANYONE can manufacture the drug so long as they pay the company $200... CorruptUser 14:02, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Not going to link to that rag, but Daily Mail is claiming all 4 Americans were drug dealers. When a more respectable newspaper reports this, maybe it's true, but until then it's just the most vile of slander. CorruptUser 18:19, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Apparently the Gulf Cartel (allegedly) "took responsibility" in a letter near five men who were tied up in a pickup truck for the authorities to pick up. That's all we know and is of course "subject to change". "You never know" with this sort of thing.

The New York Post hinted that a trafficking turf war "cannot be ruled out" but then went on a detailed criminal history of the four victims (which includes drug dealing). Way too soon to even link the two together though. They've learned nothing from their misreporting on stuff like the Central Park Five. At any rate, we live in an era where the Sackler family made a shit-ton of money "drug dealing" and for all intents and purposes got away with it. These type of smear attempts don't carry much currency with me now. "Drug dealers" are just like other unethical "entrepreneurs", the ones that get arrested for it are just in the "wrong social circles". BobJohnson (talk) 20:40, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Corrupt, you know the Daily Fail is seen as 'generally unreliable' by WP, right? And if it told me it was raining today, I'd still look out of the window for confirmation? KarmaPolice (talk) 05:23, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

"NATO bad, Serbia did nothing wrong" line

It's another day of Serbian "NATO bad, Serbia did nothing wrong".

I saw a post on LinkedIn, out of all places, in which is a screenshot of Von der Layen's post expressing support to Ukraine, but words related to Ukraine crossed and replaced with words related Kosovo ("Russian" separatists replaced "Albanian" separatists). The fact that the words are crossed implies that the post is also pro-Russia.

And a lot of people liked that. Generally most of the responders had negative views on what the West does and agreed with "Serbia did nothing wrong" line and "the West is EVIL" line.

I know that Kosovo is part of our national heritage, but it's so hard-glued in Serbian mind that it's independence will literally make Serbs "die" or riot. Serbs in Kosovo literally fear Albanian oppression too.

There was a lot of drama in Northern Kosovo, including Priština allegedly wanting to build police station there, some Albanian insurgents shooting at two young Serbian males, frequent barricades...

Anyway, there is a hard anti-Western sentiment among Serbs, so generally a lot of Serbs will side with anyone that is against the West, in this case, Russia (most will do it anyway, because Serbo-Russian brotherhood).

And I'm out of that line, which is bad in Serbian world, so I must be commiting a lot of cardinal sins. ASerb (talk) 10:56, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

I've heard from BBC that Ukrainian and anti-Putin Russian refugees have been physically targeted by the far-right in Serbia. Pan-Slavism also seems to be common in the far-right of Serbia, that Serbia and Russia are the same. Bongolian (talk) 18:23, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

I've literally seen some people casually wearing Z and Wagner T-shirts. ASerb (talk) 20:00, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Didn't Serbians pull up to the Australian open with an imperial Russian flag while a Ukrainian athlete was on the court?-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:48, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Look almost half of Americans voted for Trump. Obviously there are plenty of pro-Russian Serbs but there are also plenty of pro-west ones. If Serbs all think the west is evil, how do you explain the Nick Slaughter phenomenon? FairDinkum (talk) 12:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I've recently read about that character. He was a kind of a mascot in leftist punk circles, especially in resistance against Slobodan Milošević's regime. And there is a documentary on how that guy became an icon.ASerb (talk) 12:32, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

The Israeli government is shooting itself in the foot over and over

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/08/israel-fighter-pilots-judicial-overhaul-protests

If you have been watching the "judicial overhaul"situation. You will know that things are going to Hell in a hand basket. What do you expect from a far right government? --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 22:21, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

It's especially disappointing when Israel could seize the moment assisting Ukraine. Instead they'd rather start a war with Palestinians and destroy the only check on parliamentary power.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

The Israeli government managed to unite much of their country against them. They should put the breaks on their plan and sit down with the opposition for talks and dialogue. Israel is moving closer to civil war. If that happens then the terrorism that does exist there will fester. What easier way for terrorism to thrive than in a country torn by civil war? Syria is an excellent example. Terrorist groups in Syria are thriving thanks to a civil war. There is the option of peace talks with the opposition or there is the civil war option that allows terrorism to thrive and potentially cost thousands of lives with a serious humanitarian crisis. --Sexy Trans Zombie (talk) 00:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I strongly doubt Israel will have any kind of civil war. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 01:49, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Israel's been accused of been drifting into "apartheid" and theocratic-style illiberalism for a while. Though in the beginning the accusations were somewhat hyperbolic, with every right-wing government it seems like they've slowly been creeping in that direction and proving the accusers right. I doubt a violent civil war is possible as well personally, but it's hard to say what will happen next. The judicial changes seem really unpopular, even among the military (never a good sign for anyone with autocratic ambitions). Possibly the worst case scenario is some sort of constitutional crisis I guess, where parts of government start simply not listening to the other, and no one is really fully in charge. BobJohnson (talk) 03:07, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Itamar Ben-Gvir is the guy in charge of the Israeli cops now, and about a third of the military voted for him. Was expanding his draft the other day, but hadn't ever gotten to the part where he's been a total goon for Netanyahu, ordering the military to brutalize protesters against the judicial "reforms" (that are being passed as just a way to prevent Netanyahu from being prosecuted for corruption, aren't they?). Chillpilled (talk) 05:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Would that be a third of the IDF, or a third of the professional IDF? An important difference, as it's ⅔ conscripts. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:54, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

The New Yorker article cited to that in his draft just says "a third of all Israeli soldiers". Chillpilled (talk) 09:54, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

That stat smells weird. Ben-Gvir is from a party which only got 10% of the popular vote. Yet 2/3rds of the IDF are universal conscripts, and thus could be expected to mirror the more general voting patterns of the population at large. Perhaps even lean a bit away from the norm as Haredis are generally exempt from said conscription. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:19, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Israel is one of the few countries where young people (read: those conscripts) are significantly more right-wing than older generations. Just look up "israel youth more right wing" for a plethora of articles attributing the last election result to the right-wing youth (example that mentions 70% of young Israelis identify as right-wing). Yet this has been known for some time — at least a few years. As the JTA article mentions, the youth are increasingly Orthodox. But that doesn't necessarily mean Haredi Orthodox. Many are Modern Orthodox, and even those who aren't Orthodox are at least going to Orthodox synagogues for rituals.

Even secular Jews in Israel might trend more right-wing than their elders. As for why: their elders were Holocaust survivors, collectivist kibbutz-goers, Soviet immigrants, impoverished refugees, etc... what are their offspring? They grew up amidst intifadas and the general death of the left in their country (already well completed by the time of Israel's "Gen Z"). All they ever may have known was Bibi and bombs flying each way. Smells like fertile ground for tribalism; their grandparents' environment meanwhile smells like fertile ground for anti-fascist and socialist ideology. Chillpilled (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Not questioning any of that. Literally questioning just the claim that 'a third of the military voted for Ben-Gvir'. Widen it to 'a third of the military voted for people/parties like Ben-Gvir', now that's believable. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:37, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

It might be that the Yorker botched it in paraphrasing a bit: Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party ran on a joint list with the Religious Zionist Party and Noam, though these are their own flavors of far-right (not quite as Kahanist). There is another estimate mentioned here that only ~20% rather than ~33% of soldiers voted for that alliance. Also worth noting they were especially popular in the settlements (Ben-Gvir himself being a settler). Chillpilled (talk) 16:53, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Which is also why I questioned whether the stat came from the whole IDF, or just the professional bit of it. To draw a different example, on first light there was a correlation between military service persons [current and former] and the Jan 6 putch and general MAGA-hattery. But on closer look, you see that it's more particular bits of the military, esp the Marine Corps. I might be a pedantic get at times, but in situations like this think it's important to be. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:02, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Current/former officers and reserves are actively supporting protests in Tel-Aviv.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 20:21, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

WW2 research

I was doing some research on the American embargo placed on the Japanese before the bombing of pearl harbour and I found this website, some red flags immediately came up, one being a personal insult to Americans which stated:

"Don’t bother to ask the typical American what U.S. economic warfare had to do with provoking the Japanese to mount their attack, because he won’t know. Indeed, he will have no idea what you are talking about.

What does everyone else think about this website? ^{— Unsigned, by: 110.151.89.228 / talk / contribs}

The article in question was written by a certain Robert Higgs (an Austrian school economist) in the Independent Institute (a libertarian thinktank).

Without any further judgements, in other words, this article looks like it would be a poor primary source of information due to coming from a political angle by someone who promotes a form widely thought of as pseudoeconomics. Only skimming, I don't think it's completely "wrong" per se -- for instance, the 1911 treaty that is a big focus of the Higgs article is mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Pearl Harbor but only as one of many preludes to that event -- but this article looks awfully cherry picked and, as you point out, rather arrogant. BobJohnson (talk) 00:06, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Some Austrian School economists, as well as historians that adhere to their views are known for pseudhistorical takes on Pearl Harbor (although I didn't know that Higgs supported these views). Percy L Greaves wrote a 1000 pages books claiming that Roosevelt knew about the the attack[9]. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 01:07, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

The article ignores the imperialist context. Japan had begun a slow colonization of Korea beginning in the late 1800s, resulting in full colonization beginning in 1910. Japan also controlled a port city in Manchuria that it had obtained from Russia by winning the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905). Following World War I, Japan had been handed a whole slew of islands in Micronesia by the League of Nations, which followed the de-empirization of Germany. Then in the 1930s, Japan invaded from Korea to take control of the entirety of Manchuria, given Japan access to vast resources to build its war machine. As the prelude to (or beginning of) World War II, Japan initiated the Sino-Japanese war by creating the false flag Mukden incident in 1937. This was followed by the Battle of Shanghai (Shanghai was an international city at the time) and the Rape of Nanjing in 1937. This all happened before the US embargo, which began in 1939. So, Japan had already demonstrated unbridled ruthlessness to expand its empire by this time, and it was quite reasonable to create the embargo, though arguably it should have happened sooner. The cited page kind of sounds like a rewrite of the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories without explicitly saying that Roosevelt knew in advance that Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor. Bongolian (talk) 01:37, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I read the original quote more as an insult to American history educators than Americans themselves; due to the general woeful level of historical knowledge of their own country and even less of economic matters [another example; it wasn't folk like the Lone Fucking Ranger who 'won the West', it was the combined might of capitalism from 'the East' which ran over everything which stood against them in the drive for more money with Pinkertons, the railroads and the US Army].

Also, if I recall right the oil embargo was in 1940, not 1939. It was in direct retaliation for the Japanese for occupying French Indochina, which they'd screwed out of Vichy. KarmaPolice (talk) 05:01, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

'As a general observation' - given the time available and range of stuff that has to be taught schools (and even higher education places) can only teach 'so much' of any topic. The issue, perhaps, should be that people are encouraged to continue learning after leaving formal education (even if only to 'have read the Wikipedia article and similar/superficial level' and a bit beyond). Anna Livia (talk) 12:57, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

What struck out to me was the choice of words like "provoke" and "stranglehold". The idea that Japan was backed into a corner and forced into attacking Pearl Harbor is a common trope in revisionism/pseudohistory about the country's role in WWII, and as Bongolian did a good job of pointing out, that narrative pretty much ignores the Second Sino-Japanese War and other forms of Japanese aggression in Asia. This article in particular pretty much ignores that part of history and claims Japan built themselves up through international trade, not imperialism.DietMondrian (talk) 21:01, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

What do you think of xenogenders?

I think they are stupid however that doesn't mean I am against non-binaries or other other genders like that ←§ Edward the eight (talk) 19:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for this valuable contribution to the discourse./s - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:07, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I see some overlap between it and astrology (celestial gender system). I think there is a lot of woo to sift through, and a lot of it feels like trying to come up with a label for every possible shade of human introspective experience; an endeaver I find disturbingly reductionist. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 01:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It strikes me as attention-seeking. I mean, yeah, whatever makes you happy, it's not hurting anyone; there's also no requirement that anyone else play along. Just give me your name, I can work with that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

As someone who is leaning towards a 'post-gender' view, I think it's kinda pointless. It also fails the 'laugh test' with the Big Public, which should be avoided as much as possible. Call youself what the hell you want, I shall continue to do what I do; 'he' for obviously male, 'she' for obviously female and 'they' for everyone which is a vague question mark. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:21, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

People who have traditional views on gender are going to be an enduring phenomenon in my country and they are going to have considerable political clout - especially in red states. Republicans Have More Kids Than Democrats. A Lot More Kids. Errems26 (talk) 09:55, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

As an alleged extreme form of gender identity, it also passes the Poe's Law test, e.g. things like Alt-right glossary#Attack helicopter/Apache. Bongolian (talk) 21:43, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It really is just Tumblr nonsense from teenagers who want to feel special. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 10:12, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Teens still use Tumblr? KarmaPolice (talk) 10:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The reason I compared xenogenders to astrology (beyond the actual explicit link between the two within the subcategory of the celestial gender system) is I think it follows the same motivation. People asking what your sign is in order to put you in some stupid bin that they can then use a set of canned stereotypes to quantify you. It is people trying to hyper categorize themselves and others in order to make sense of the world (a noble motivation), but ends up just leading to discrimination and bigotry against those "in the wrong category" and those "not sufficiently in their category". A person should never be treated as, or feel they must stay true to, their race, sign, gender, origin, career, etc. They should just be "Jamie". MirrorIrorriM (talk) 13:35, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

No. Makes still more sense than astrology.Max Sinister (talk) 09:39, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

from what i can see of xenogender identities is there seem to be no great impact on the wider world. no legal issues or controversies like those that plague transgender identities. it takes no effort on my part to acknowledge a xenogender identity of someone once informed of it and is just good manners to boot, and no reason not all to knowingly disregard it. ive yet to encounter anyone claiming such an identity, and if truth be told, i might be dubious of the validity of it. but i am not the judge of anothers identity, and i try generally not to be a prick about things. you do you, as they say. if it needed to be validated to me for some reason, time would be the test. if someone is determined or committed enough to still identify the same a year from now, or 5 years, or 10 years, then perhaps there is something in it. as of now though, i have no clue as how such identities might manifest, or if there is anything to suggest to me their identity without having to be informed of it. it will probably be difficult not to view it as absurd for awhile yet. but then, so much of the human experience is absurd. wwe'd all be better people if we remembered that AMassiveGay (talk) 13:43, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Kind of what I think as well. What does it really mean? Who knows. When we have a moral system in place wherein one must accept what others say about themselves without question, then one might well expect some amount of leg-pulling. It certainly appears a harmless enterprise, the exploration of possible or occult genders. I don't suppose, however, that the general public would ever complacently accept such an idea.Ariel31459 (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Is this term actually used terribly much? A quick search of Fetlife shows, well, very little hits for me. Where terms like "genderfluid" and "nonbinary" (along with other things where you get to play non-human, such as, say, "primal play") yield tons. I mean, I kind of put this in the "mostly harmless" camp as well, particularly if, as it appears, it's just a small meme among a small Tumblr group and a few Twitter circles here and there actually using it. "Xenogender" also seems like a straw man / snarl word among certain types of 4Chan trolls (the probability of "xenogender" appearing on a 4Chan post with other homophobic / transphobic slurs is pretty high) and as far as I can tell that's probably the only reason why anyone gives a shit about this term. BobJohnson (talk) 21:55, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

"there's also no requirement that anyone else play along." Depends on the jursdiction. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 07:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

they do not refer to xenogendersAMassiveGay (talk) 11:33, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I have no problems with xenogenders whatsoever. Gender is a social construct, there's nothing you can do to try to claim some particular expression of it does not count/is wrong. It's designed by and for humans and thus humans have the capacity to be a bit subversive about it.--April ^Chat? 02:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

People will say things like "oh, well, only young Tumblr teenagers take on xenogender identities anyway," but like...even if that were the case, then just let them have fun with it, lol. It's not harming anybody.--April ^Chat? 02:25, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

"they do not refer to xenogenders" They include language like "The NYCHRL requires employers and covered entities to use the name, pronouns, and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs./Mx.)15 with which a person self-identifies, regardless of the person’s sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the person’s identification." With no restriction on what qualifies for legitemate self-identification, this implicitly includes xenogenders and anything else anyone would want to claim. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 09:42, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

no it doesnt you are talking nonsense AMassiveGay (talk) 10:20, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

You seem to underestimate the power of badly-written legislation, Gay. Now, the exact text appears to read as stated. However, there does not seem to have been an actual legal case brought in front of a judge as yet regarding xenogenders. What's more, I've done a very quick read of the legal guidence for this and the only bit you could get really dinged on is III/1 ['Failing To Use an Individual’s Preferred Name or Pronoun'] of which I suspect the defendent may have a reasonable defence if they'd simply stuck to Mx/They for all folks not male/female. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:14, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

good luck on getting a ruling on that. besides which is it even likely that a ruling would be needed? no it is not. the pendentry of the bon above is nonsense in any real sense AMassiveGay (talk) 12:18, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I think any NY judge would throw out a xenogender claim out as being 'vexatious' and/or 'frivolous' as soon as it became fairly obvious that it was [from my read of the legal guide, I would (if the judge) choose the latter]. There are laws/limitations against that kind of shit, and most bar associations really don't look kindly on lawyers who knowingly file such things either. Lastly, who the hell would pay for it to get there? Honestly, I can think of better uses of that cash, including [but not limited to] gambling at Atlantic City and spending it in strip clubs.

My working theory is that as they like to read laws in an 'Anal Stupid' manner (qv, gun control), they assume everyone else shall do similar. Perhaps they should try doing such a case and seeing how far it gets them? KarmaPolice (talk) 20:21, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Courts in the US have tended to rule that compelled speech is a no-go, so that New York policy will probably be struck down if it ever comes up. However, until then, it is the law on the books, and employers in New York can see that. What do you suppose their employee codes of conduct have to say about it? If the company lawyers are decent, probably something vaguely implying that employees should follow it without being clear enough to put the company on the hook either way, since most companies wouldn't want to be involved in a case like this. And with most individuals probably not wanting to be involved in a circus either, it might not be challenged for some time. KarmaPolice: Are you suggesting that it is the business of bar associations/courts/etc. to adjucate what counts as a sincerely-held belief regarding one's identity or what counts as a "legitemate" identity? Becasue that sounds like an even bigger circus to me.

As for the situation in Ontario, xenogenders haven't come up to my knowedge, and how the law applies to various situations is still being worked out, but one thing that is apparently consistent is that there is no check for validity or legitimacy of the claimed identity. The cases I've seen are not structured such that that is even a concern. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 14:01, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

This is clear edge-case, clutching at straws whataboutism, but I find it sufficently interesting to reply. Theoretically, employers/service providers could be coerced into 'accepting' xenogenders by fears of legal action. But what does this actually mean? What would 'accommodations' for a xenogender person actually look like? Any vaguely-competent legal counsel [having looked up what 'xenogenders' were and the official guidence] would almost certainly come to roughly the same conclusion as I would; basically 'treat as non-binary' and leave it at that. Therefore, unless you've got an issue of NB's in general, the ultimate effect shall be near nil. Like the often maligned ADA, the key aspect is reasonable accommodation; the request for a gender-neutral bathroom and uniform at a large company would most likely be classed as such, the demands for a 'fluiddemitrigender' bathroom and uniform is 99.8% to be thrown out.

That is, unless you're a social reactionary who's pig-headed as fuck and actively desires to make a scene. In which I suspect you'd be hit by angry trans/NBs long before any xenogender came along to offend your sensabilities. Or just angry people in general, because if you're the sort of person who doesn't know how be polite in professional settings, chances are you're going to be a crap boss/employee due to poor interpersonal skills. Or you do know but don't want to be, which means you're just toxic. And also skirting illegality, as it appears SCOTUS has extended workplace protections for trans persons, and repeated, malicious misgendering at work etc could be classed as harrassment. NBs are ahead of the curve and don't have this level of protections, but in this case it exists on the state level for New York.

Now, is it the business of the courts to adjucate on personal beliefs? No. Is it their job to adjucate on the law and a person's actions [or lack of] in connection with? Yes. Being racist, for example is not illegal. However they can judge you on your [mis]conduct related to the previous. Similar with homophobia, sexism and now transphobia. If you don't like this principle, clearly you're hankering for an America before 1964 - and shall be judged by the population accordingly. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:43, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

"But what does this actually mean?" That, depending on jurisdiction, there are requirements to play along. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 19:56, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

It's called being polite and tolerating views you do not in fact personally agree with. It's a little trick us humans have learned so we can live in large groups without needing to resort to frequent lynchings, witch-trials or the occasional genocide. Just think, millions of Americans 'play along' every day regarding the existence of some omnipotent being justified by an ancient tome of debatable authenticity or accuracy but some insist is 'all true'. You cannot demand 'tolerance' for some aspect of your life then refuse to grant it to others. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:51, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

"It's called being polite and tolerating views you do not in fact personally agree with." No, in those cases it's a legal code of conduct. Standards of politeness are established by cultural norms, and the norm that pronouns are something which individuals decide for themselves is both very new and rare outside certain subcultures. That's not the linguistic function pronouns served until recently, and these laws constitute an attempt at enforced change of language use. I've actually seen an apparently sincere caim to "personal adjectives" by which people are to describe a person. Do you think that's a norm which should be enforced by law? How do you propose evaluating which norms should be enforced by law?

"millions of Americans 'play along' every day regarding the existence of some omnipotent being" And requiring people to do so is legally prohibited in the US. That is an example of politeness and tolerating views you don't personally believe in. You seem to be conflating legal and moral principles in this discussion. Not every moral norm should be enforced by law, and not every law concerns moral norms. Figuring out which is which is not a trivial task, and bears more consideration than whether something is polite or offensive. Though I will note that different cultures vary in their separation of civil and moral law. The notion that something morally bad should not be made illegal is something that some people don't grok, but it's important for these sorts of discussions.

"You cannot demand 'tolerance' for some aspect of your life then refuse to grant it to others." Sure you can. Every society to have ever existed does that. Because tolerance is not a virtue in itself. Rather, some things are appropriate to tolerate (e.g. someone liking pineapple on their own pizza) and some things are not (e.g. someone poisoning the town water supply). 192․168․1․42 (talk) 09:47, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

It's no secret that the alt-right are responsible for false-flag creation of most of the extreme xenogenders. Pretty much any reference to what the 'woke' people are doing leads to a suspicious twitter account with a few dozen followers. They've mostly given up on misrepresenting left positions in favor of creating them with sockpuppets. FairDinkum (talk) 11:54, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

"It's called being polite and tolerating views you do not in fact personally agree with." No, in those cases it's a legal code of conduct. Standards of politeness are established by cultural norms, and the norm that pronouns are something which individuals decide for themselves is both very new and rare outside certain subcultures. That's not the linguistic function pronouns served until recently, and these laws constitute an attempt at enforced change of language use. I've actually seen an apparently sincere caim to "personal adjectives" by which people are to describe a person. Do you think that's a norm which should be enforced by law? How do you propose evaluating which norms should be enforced by law?

These legal codes of conduct don't stop you being an obnoxious shithead who's openly insulting to others. Just stops you acting on them if you're an employer, employee or a service provider. Thus, legally-mandated politeness in the official sphere - just like you've not allowed to discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orentation, race, religious views and so on.

These laws were made [I believe] by politicians elected by the people and carried in votes etc by the majority of the legislative body. Therefore, it can be said it does represent the 'majority view' of the inhabitants of that locality [in a manner of speaking]. Now, you can bitch about the electoral systems but that is not a discussion you'll be having with me.

"millions of Americans 'play along' every day regarding the existence of some omnipotent being" And requiring people to do so is legally prohibited in the US. That is an example of politeness and tolerating views you don't personally believe in. You seem to be conflating legal and moral principles in this discussion. Not every moral norm should be enforced by law, and not every law concerns moral norms. Figuring out which is which is not a trivial task, and bears more consideration than whether something is polite or offensive. Though I will note that different cultures vary in their separation of civil and moral law. The notion that something morally bad should not be made illegal is something that some people don't grok, but it's important for these sorts of discussions.

Incorrect. When it comes to the 'official sphere', religious affiliation/beliefs are protected. Thus, millions of agnostic/athiest Americans have to play along with mandatory politeness in regards to religion. My arguments here have purely been legal and then simply pragmatic - not moral. RE: enforced politeness in the official sphere to both allow people leeway to live the way they choose but also without hugely antagonising folks who disagree with that. The only 'moral' bit I extend further is that I hold it's a generally a good maxim for life in a pluralistic society [and even then, this is simple pragmatism].

"You cannot demand 'tolerance' for some aspect of your life then refuse to grant it to others." Sure you can. Every society to have ever existed does that. Because tolerance is not a virtue in itself. Rather, some things are appropriate to tolerate (e.g. someone liking pineapple on their own pizza) and some things are not (e.g. someone poisoning the town water supply).

Well you can, but that's called 'being a hypocrite' and rarely goes down well. And 'well it's the way it's always been' is not a reasonable argument for not doing it now [though in fact, this argument is wrong as policies of toleration go back in the New World to at least 1644, so it does have history to back it up!]. And yes, there are limits to toleration; you don't tolerate other's views which shall be damaging to others in particular or the public in general.

Which goes back to the original point which has pissed you off so. Being a complete transphobe and thinking gender-neutal stuff is stupid is perfectly 'fine' in regards to tolerance [I go with the classical definition here]. But the moment you start to hurt other people [for example, as an employee, employer or public service provider] that's when the hammer comes down. Which oddly enough, is the intention of the law you're so narked about. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:35, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ It is only hypocritical to tolerate a certain behavior but not another when those behaviors share some kind of equivalency. The example that fake BoN gave was not equivalent (pizza topping preference vs. poisoning water supply). However, fake BoN was responding to KP's claim regarding a single behavior being allowed for oneself but not others, which is hypocritical. Therefore, fake BoN's example was fallacious. Fake BoN also accuses KP of conflating legal and moral principles, but fake BoN is conflating legal obligations with personal obligations. Behaviors that are legal in your household may not be legal at your workplace. Laws that apply to the workplace that don't apply elsewhere are not hypocritical because the context of each place is not equivalent.

What seems to be lost in this discussion is that the laws pertaining to the workplace (and commercial environments that the public accesses) that may pertain to pronoun usage are not about pronoun usage per se, they are about discrimination. So the issue is whether not complying with a person's preferred pronoun usage represents discrimination, or not. I can think of scenarios where it would be (deliberate mocking and debasement) and scenarios where it wouldn't be (intending to comply but occasionally failing due to habit). I can even imagine a scenario where complying with a person's preferred pronouns could be discriminatory if the tone of the usage is dripping with sarcasm and disgust. That is why discrimination cases are specific to context, and settled by adjudicating bodies (eg courtrooms, professional guilds, etc). Of course, those authorities may issue wrong judgements some of the time, or even all of the time. Even someone who is using the wrong pronouns out of habit rather than maliciously may be required to undergo training to break that 'habit'. It really depends on the specifics of the case, for which the Saloon Bar is hardly the place to make those judgements. FairDinkum (talk) 04:14, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, as simply seen with alcohol; drinking may be legal, but not behind the wheel of a car. Most employers shall have stricter rules regarding it's consumption, too. If your employer demands that you have an effective blood alchohol of zero while on-shift, it's odd that you don't have people screaming that it's an infringement on 'ma fweedoms'. Most human beings are smart enough to get the idea of 'situational rules'; like the idea that say, human nudity may be 'generally wrong' but not if you're alone in the shower.

I didn't miss the point over harrassment; sure I mentioned it at some stage - the rules were partly designed to guard against the 'bad boss' type who'd harrass and bully an employee using a various number of 'not quite reportable' actions [I underwent this once; it is fucking evil esp when combined with gaslighting]. Lastly, I did point out the simple fact that most people are reasonable and shall appreciate the difference between something done maliciously and genuine mistakes. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:26, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, all your points were valid, if I gave the impression they weren't, I hereby clarify that. FairDinkum (talk) 02:34, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

"Pretty much any reference to what the 'woke' people are doing leads to a suspicious twitter account with a few dozen followers." How about Nonbinary wiki's article and references on xenogenders, or the older but similar otherkin? The existence of people with weird beliefs shouldn't be a surprise to you, and any ideological schema worth the ink it takes to explain should be able to accomodate them. So, what social accomodation is appropriate for such people?

"Just stops you acting on them if you're an employer, employee or a service provider." And thus, as repeated, there are jurisdictions in which people are required to play along.

"Therefore, it can be said it does represent the 'majority view' of the inhabitants of that locality [in a manner of speaking]." That's not what those words mean, Obi-Wan.

"Thus, millions of agnostic/athiest Americans have to play along with mandatory politeness in regards to religion." You've inverted it. The "having to play along" bit has to do with whether people are compelled by law to use a person's preferred pronouns. In some jurisdictions, they are. Agnostic/atheist Americans are not compelled to utter the "under God" part of the Pledge of Alliegence, attend religious practices, or state that they believe in particular religious ideology to work in a region. The general politeness stems from everyone being prohibited from enforcing their religious beiefs on others and therefore having to live with others with different beliefs. In contrast, some jurisdictions enforce particular ideological and linguistic stances regarding gender expression. You can see that these are opposite situations, right?

"Well you can, but that's called 'being a hypocrite'" "However, fake BoN was responding to KP's claim regarding a single behavior being allowed for oneself but not others, which is hypocritical. Therefore, fake BoN's example was fallacious." Only if the situations are the same. The prevailing English practice is that third person singular personal pronouns reflect the sex of the person being referred to. They're not (by standard practice) something which individuals decide for themselves, let alone unilaterally force others to use. One may tolerate others using linguistic standards that one doesn't subscribe to, but legally obligating others to use your preferred linguistic standards is not that.

"Which goes back to the original point which has pissed you off so." Oh, do tell me what I find offensive in this.

"you don't tolerate other's views which shall be damaging to others in particular or the public in general." Really, who needs freedom of speech anyway? What do you mean here such that "views" can "damage" others?

"But the moment you start to hurt other people" Equivocation. Physical harm is already illegal, and can be judged by objective criteria. People experiencing negative emotions in response to others' actions is not a thing with objective criteria, and it is not always reasonable for either the person to experience or for others to accommmodate. To be clear about what we're discussing, do you think that people should have the right to unilaterally demand that others use specified language to speak about them, enforced by law?

"fake BoN" I'll have you know that my numbers are real, and there are a bunch of them.

"fake BoN is conflating legal obligations with personal obligations" If a personal obligation is enforced by law, it is also a legal obligation.

"So the issue is whether not complying with a person's preferred pronoun usage represents discrimination, or not." This is getting into "not even wrong" territory. "Discrimination" is, as explained above, a recognition of some difference which may be used as the basis of differential treatment or consideration. Identifying and using someone's preferred pronouns is discrimination, because otherwise you wouldn't distinguish that person from others who use different pronouns. Discrimination based on certain criteria in certain contexts is illegal in various jurisdictions, and this context represents a lot of use of the term, but it's important to keep in mind what words actually mean. The point of contention here is that people opposed to using personal pronouns want to act indiscriminately in not making use of personal pronouns by way of using linguistic standards that don't call for such individualized discrimination. The argument in favor of compelled personal pronouns has to do with prioritizing personal pronouns as an avenue of protected self-expression, not with discrimination.

"the wrong pronouns" Which pronouns are "wrong"? What criteria are to be used to decide that? What linguistic standards, if any, are to be enforced by law?

"If your employer demands" The situations I linked are about governments making demands of employees in their jurisdictions. An employee who disagrees with some employer's policies could simply apply somewhere else. An employee disagreeing with a government mandate would have to move out of the jurisdiction to avoid it. To a different state/province in these cases. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 14:13, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

The page countdown

There are only 40 articles to go before 7777 is reached - only one more quality article a week to do so by the end of 2023. Anna Livia (talk) 13:01, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally I was digging into the archives of proposed articles and found quite a few I found interesting enough to at least research whether they were worth pursuing. Though I can never make a promise to create an article or to do so in any time frame.

Examples I put in a notepad: Misanthropy (proposed 2013), onions (proposed 2015; since that date there's emerged some — perhaps even semi-credible? — broscience about onions increasing testosterone so could be even more worth), chemsex (2015), opposition to pornography (2015), Retraction Watch (2016), Thule Society (2016), moonshine (2016), kosher tax (2016), Northwest Front (2016; I know some hilarious shit about a, perhaps former, leader of theirs. It's a Nazi org and I believe he may have abandoned them), war on cash (2016), handwashing (2016), mobile phones (2018).

If anyone finds any of these intriguing too, don't let me stop you from being the one to start it. I'm obviously not staking some kind of claim here. Chillpilled (talk) 15:48, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Thule Society is the only one that sounds up my alley as the site’s resident history bro. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 15:54, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Any given major aspect of OG Nazi occultist insanity, like that, is the sort of thing I would have expected RationalWiki to already have an article about. There is Hyperborea, I guess. Chillpilled (talk) 16:08, 10 March 2023 (UTC) Oh yeah, another topic I saw proposed was vril, but I'm not the person to ever write that article. As far as I can tell, the quick rundown is that many OG Nazi occultists read this fantasy novel and took it to be completely serious. I also see "gender role reversal" as a category on the Wikipedia page which is fascinating — does this book contain an Aryan matriarchy or something? Chillpilled (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Vril would need a mention of Bovril.

I tend to create articles elsewhere in the wikiverse. Anna Livia (talk) 19:28, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Are you really suggesting we do a RW page on Bovril? KarmaPolice (talk) 19:52, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Only that there should be a mention on the 'Vril' page. Anna Livia (talk) 19:32, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Oy! a BoN found a wuh-oh!

@Armed roomba ur talk page is locked for me so I can't do anything But you have a "kanye-enjoyer" userbox and some kanye stuff in that image on your user page. Maybe remove that? 149.19.40.235 (talk) 01:58, 13 March 2023 (UTC)Bumpf

Don't expect a reply. That user last edited just over a year ago on 9 March 2022. But I've nominated the Ye userbox for deletion. Spud (talk) 06:50, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

If this isn't a waste of energy I don't know what is. Purge on!-Hastur! (talk) 08:44, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh I get it, the BoN is an RW-hostile who is trying to pretend that not cancelling Kanye is some kind of RW faux pas. That sure backfired... FairDinkum (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Something rather dreadful

Does the Heritage Foundation now have a body count? Some guy who was an activist for them in the 1980s, Michael Pocalyko, is now tied up in a suicide, at least according to the note left behind by a Saudi trans woman claiming to have known him. Chillpilled (talk) 17:13, 13 March 2023 (UTC) Funeral confirmation Chillpilled (talk) 19:09, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

A (Condensed) Introduction to Argumentation

I have decided to write a manual of Argumentation, exclusive to RW. Here are some excerpts of the full introduction essay:

Recently I had the opportunity to take an amateur assessment of the ability to engage in argumentation of several active members of RW. The results were dismal, but that is hardly the fault of those whom I assessed, because argumentation is a skill that must be practiced to develop. As is common in most social settings, argumentation on RW is seen as something undesirable. That attitude was shown to be apparent when several people, including one with moderator status, expressed their desire to shut down the various arguments and sub-arguments I was involved in soon after they began, rather than allowing the arguments to resolve on their own volition. One RW member suggested that I and I alone was "dragging out" an argument, which is impossible because argumentation is a collaborative endeavor. A person cannot single handedly keep an argument going. Ironically, I was also told by that member that because RW is a collaborative effort, my participation in those arguments was antithetic to RW's wiki-based mission.

In the previous paragraph I mentioned that argumentation is a skill that must be practiced in order for people to develop that skill. Obviously in an arena where argumentation is frowned upon and actively discouraged it would be very difficult to practice that skill and develop it. The reason most social arenas, including RW are places where members try to "shut down" arguments when they arbitrarily decide the arguments are "getting out of hand", is because argumentation has a serious image problem.

Argumentation can be very messy and unappealing, it can generate discomfort in both those who engage in it and those who are spectators of it. But the reason argumentation suffers from such a bad reputation is because while it's something we engage in on a daily basis, whether it's between family members, friends, or public interaction, we all start out being terrible at it. And unless we have opportunities to engage in it unfettered, we have no hope of getting any better at it. However, it's more complicated than that. If we engage in many arguments over time our usage of methods that don't seem to work well will diminish in frequency, as our usage in methods that do seem to work well will increase in frequency. The problem with that approach is that we will wind up adopting some very bad habits. Aggressive tactics like shouting, name-calling, and threatening, as well as more passive-aggressive tactics like ridicule all seem to "work" well in argumentation, if the goal is to triumph over one's opponent, which is unfortunately what people have been conditioned since childhood to believe is the ultimate goal of argumentation. What we tend not to realize, because we don't understand much about argumentation, is that shouting, name-calling, ridiculing and threatening are not parts of argumentation. When people get to the point where they are willing to resort to those tactics, they've given up on arguing. They've given up on the collaborative nature of argumentation, and the reason they give up on arguing in deference to methods of force is because they have exhausted their ability to argue effectively. And since the likelihood that people engaging in argumentation know how to engage in argumentation is so low as to be non-existent, people typically exhaust their ability to argue effectively very quickly.

At the beginning of this spiel I mentioned that I found it peculiar that so many people piled on and happily accused me of being responsible for all the arguments I was involved in on RW. It took me a while to figure out why. At first I blamed it on cronyism, and while I'm sure that dynamic played some part in the discrepancy, I had forgotten that my profile on RW lists Argumentation as one of my interests, while another of my interests is listed as Egoism. A person who has no idea what those interests actually entail would probably be inclined to interpret it to mean that I am a belligerent narcissistic blowhard who can't play nice in the sandbox and maybe even set out to prove it by way of provocation. Others might jump at the chance to "take me down a few pegs", to show me up as a hostile meany. Even someone who is not consciously aware of a bias against someone who claims to be interested in argumentation (and egoism) may have a desire to do some proverbial poking at the beast, just to see what transpires. That's all very unfortunate, but the good news is that it doesn't have to be that way.

This is your opportunity to improve yourself in a way that I think is paramount in this day and age. Argumentation is a skill perfectly suited to today's Internet-driven world. Every person who has ever fallen for a conspiracy theory has allowed themselves to be convinced by a poor argument. Every alt-right "influencer" of any note is a seemingly bottomless repository of poor arguments (whenever they're not too lazy to do anything but lie).

So here's my proposal: I will volunteer to write a manual of argumentation exclusively for RW. Besides keeping me busy, I believe it will give members of RW an opportunity for self-improvement that will pay life-long dividends. This manual will be loosely based on David Zarefsky's Argumentation course lecture series for the Teaching Company. That series is over 20 years old now, so I will update it by writing new chapters pertaining to the internet and wiki format, as well as using more current references and examples. I will try my best to not plagiarize Zarefsky's lectures by paraphrasing as much as possible.

I will also be writing much more about bias and context than Zarefsky does, as well as integrating an egoistic perspective that is missing from Zarefsky's treatment. This will be a long and arduous process that will take up most of my free time for a significant period. I am not an academic trained in argumentation, I have learned it on my own mainly from Zarefsky's lecture series. I hope there will be some appreciation of the effort I am willing to put into doing this. Zarefsky's lecture series is 12 hours long and is available in video format at a cost of $235 at the time of this writing. If it interests you, I highly recommend purchasing it. I've listened to an audio-only version of it, which no longer seems to be available for purchase, several times and I will go through it chapter by chapter to coincide with the chapters of the manual I will be writing. This project may take some months to complete and the release of new chapters may be delayed by unforeseen issues in my life. Each chapter will probably be about as long as this introduction is. If you read it, you will become familiar with the terminology used when talking about argumentation, pitfalls that can derail good argumentation, as well as some "burdens" that a person who desires to argue in good faith must accept responsibility for. I am not exaggerating when I say that learning argumentation has been the most beneficial thing to my life that I have ever done. It has helped me communicate more effectively with my family, friends and people on the internet. If you set your mind to learning argumentation, I think you may find it as rewarding as I have.

This post is an edited down version of my introduction to the series, which is available in the Essay section of RW. Subsequent chapters will appear in the Essay section of RW. I expect it to be a valuable resource that will go a long way in helping RW remain at the cutting edge of online discourse. If anyone feels like helping, I'm sure we can work out a system for collaboration. Even a proof-reader or two would be very helpful (and you'll get to read the chapters before anyone else does!). As new chapters are posted as Essays, I will post links to each new chapter in the Saloon Bar.

If you missed the link to the full Introduction essay at the beginning of this post, here it is:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Argumentation_-_An_Introduction

Comments and/or suggestions are appreciated. FairDinkum (talk) 08:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm excited to see where this goes. I know I'm not good at arguing anything where immediate data is unavailable. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 13:02, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Eh, the instigating troll of this essay is under a coop investigation for arrogant bullshittery with mods and other users (including a ridiculous doxxing accusations against Ace). Nice to see the other red link try and act all high and might, where the same user is most likely a banned sad soul who presently is creating hilariously bad ad hominem attacks against RationalWiki on Conservapedia (including literally the most embarrassing "rap" attempt I've seen, and I've heard the Dee Dee Ramone "rap" album). This is basically an attempt at gaslighting and more RW editor harassment, so I move from "don't care" to "ban ya for 3 weeks, asshat". BobJohnson (talk) 18:57, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Brom, thanks for the suggestion. I am probably not qualified to write a manual on dialectic, but I may touch on it. Perhaps you might consider writing a full manual on it. Mirror: Thanks for the encouragement, it really helps to get me motivated. BobJohnson: Your claim that I am currently under a coop investigation is probably correct, I haven't even checked to see how that is going because I have decided I don't really need to defend myself (if that is even possible - I was blocked from responding to ATIM accusations), it is up to the mod who started the coop case to prove their case, using the record of my and their various statements and actions. At the time of this entry, my faith remains that the people who will decide the outcome of that case will either exonerate me, or rule that requirements under the coop procedures are not met. Unfortunately you have decided to misrepresent that record (and libel me in the process), but whether you are aware of your misrepresentations or not, I fail to see what this has to do with the topic of writing a manual of argumentation. While it's true that my motivation for writing a manual of argumentation has its genesis in the arguments you referred to (which almost all took place on my talk page, by people who were not invited to initiate those arguments), I find your attempt at character assassination (which is a poisoning the well fallacy since your implicit claim is that I am not qualified to write a manual of argumentation because I engaged in arguments that led to a coop case) as highly inappropriate as is the coop case itself, which was threatened by a clearly pathological mod three days after there had been no activity on the page whatsoever, meaning that the mod was not triggered by seeing activity on the recent changes page, but actually stewed for three days while they claim they were away from RW. FairDinkum (talk) 06:37, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

"it is up to the mod who started the coop case to prove their case, using the record of my and their various statements and actions." That's not how it works. There is only the vote. You're currently looking at a 22-day ban. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 14:23, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

That was a lot of words just to say "NO U".

How it started: "When people get to the point where they are willing to resort to (shouting, name-calling, and threatening), they've given up on arguing"

How it's going: "threatened by a clearly pathological mod"

Lesson: Do not throw stones if you live in a glass house. BobJohnson (talk) 19:13, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't "threatening" FairDinkum either, lol. I was recommending opening a case for community discussion on sanctions, which could go either in favor or not. Basically gauging a consensus on how we proceed dealing with a problematic user. I guess I can see why it was interpreted as a "threat" but it evidently didn't persuade. I don't think you used "gaslighting" either appropriately, to be fair, BobJohnson, but FairDinkum's love for the terms "gaslighting", "pathological" "doxxing", and now "triggering" is... well, it's not good. Histrionics if anything. --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 19:25, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

I presume you have a genuine interest in the art of argument. I think everyone can profit from the stoic method of discourse. That is, to ignore personal remarks and stay on point. So, for example, if I were to present a discussion of some argument and a responder were to reply that it appeared to them that my head must be abnormally spherical in order to hold such opinions, I would best support my perspective by ignoring such an obtuse assertion. I should rightly leave it to the readers to determine the irrelevant character of such a rejoinder. If ones argument appears to be unfounded, then one must answer the complaints of the critic without regard to tangential details, gratuitous insults, or factitious asides. I, for one, prefer an argument to be presented without reference to the incivility of critics. By my reckoning, one should eventually succeed in acquiring the approval of thoughtful readers through the presentation of ideas in the stoic manner.UncleKrampus (talk) 18:19, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Plutocow started the coop case and they aren't a mod. So, Dinky here is wrong about that aswell. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 19:29, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Even beyond the fact that this is an obvious attempt to poison the well here, no. This idea is dumb and bad. Not only is a "guide to argumentation" incredibly patronizing even from someone who is actually operating in good faith, you are operating in bad faith. Literally no one needs advice on argumentation from you, you've shown to be a very aggressive and unreasonable person. --Ozzyboo (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

ugh, what a mess. I am glad that a certain user removed their comment in support of me, I do not recommend that anyone come to my defense because some of the people here are unhinged and extremely vindictive. Unfortunately, because the governance of RW is said to be a 'mobocracy', many users seem to think that means that they should form social gangs in order to wield power. I am not willing to encourage that by trying to form my own gang. Now, on to the replies:

Fake BoN: Hopefully the people voting in the coop case would review the case before voting, but I suppose you're right, some or even all of the people voting may vote according to what the 'mob' dictates, without even bothering to consider the evidence, or reading the guidelines for opening a coop case. One of those guidelines is to attempt to solve the beef with discussion before resorting to opening a coop case, which was not attempted. I may be assuming too much by thinking that the coop case against me would follow the coop case guidelines. At this point nothing incredibly pathetic regarding the 'mobocracy' would surprise me. Thanks for letting me know what my punishment may be. I had assumed it would probably be a toothless rebuke to satiate the person throwing the tantrum, but if a 22-day ban is at stake, I sure hope some semblence of fairness prevails. Again, I'm not counting on it. It seems strange to me that anyone would want to create ever-lasting animosity with me, because I'm not going to go away. I've done some research into the abuses of the RW mobocracy, and have determined that they are widespread and generally accepted. Most of the people I've witnessed being abused by the Usual Suspects silently take their lumps. That, too, is very unfortunate, and I don't know the history behind how RW devolved into this kind of bullying arena, and maybe I should've just silently taken my lumps as well, but I've never done that anywhere else in my 40 years of online discourse, so I'm not about to start now.

BobJohnson: As I stated in my Condensed Introduction to Argumentation, argumentation is a skill, and as a skill one cannot reach a point of perfection. That includes me. However, even the most patient person can be poked and prodded enough to react in the same manner as the people poking and prodding that person. Often when a person does not respond with the desired emotional outburst to such poking and prodding, the poking and prodding increases in intensity and frequency until the person finally retaliates. That's the nature of the 'gotcha trap' I described in my reply to UncleKrampus. Once the 'gotcha' is obtained, it is lorded over the victim as if nothing transpired before it. If Plutocow is so concerned about name-calling (I believe I called them a 'clown') it seems rather strange that they certainly had no problem with all the people calling me names on my talk page, which Plutocow was glued to for several weeks, long before being called a 'clown'. Too busy posting stupid photos of a whale to notice, I suppose. BTW, earlier you accused me of: "ridiculous doxxing accusations against Ace". My memory must be failing me because I don't remember doing that. Could you please quote me making those alleged accusations? I'd also like you to provide quotes for the "arrogant bullshittery with mods and other users", because that doesn't sound familiar either. Thanks in advance! Remember, if you can't provide quotes that your accusations describe, then you're the one guilty of "bullshittery". And finally, when did 'arrogance' become a high crime? How is that accusation remotely objective? Your comments to me seem pretty arrogant to me. Who gets to decide what is 'arrogant', and so arrogant that it requires mob bullying and justifies severe punishment? Just wondering...

Lefty: Not only did you threaten the coop case, you egged on Plutocow to do your dirty work for you. Pretty classy!

UncleKrampus: I agree, but the standard you described is not the standard that RW operates by. RW is a 'mobocracy', which is why this entire mess is possible. The political format RW subscribes to encourages what is transpiring here. When you start with a problematic foundation, this is what's going to happen. There is a tendency among certain regulars to bait people into 'gotcha' traps, and if the bait is taken they are so enthused by the results they've accomplished that they proudly and incessantly wave it around like a trophy, a strategy that seems to have been so effective that they don't even bother setting up those traps convincingly anymore, they just lazily trip the switch of the 'gotcha' machine and let it go to work.

You're completely correct, though, I always try to ignore ad hominems, snide remarks, etc, and only address the premise(s) and claim. A lot of other people focus on the ad hominems and snide remarks, and actively try to induce them (the 'gotcha' trap) so that they can act all offended and pretend as if the argument itself doesn't have to be addressed. On the other hand, a lot of the time I find myself responding to 'arguments' that consist of nothing but ad hominems and snide remarks, and if you try to take the high road by not responding to them, you risk people assuming you are silent because what they've said is true. BF Skinner notoriously ignored Noam Chomsky's first book, which consisted of a bogus refutation of behaviorism. Because it was filled with ad hominems and passive-aggressive insults, he chose not to respond to it. And for the next 30 years behaviorism was considered to be thoroughly refuted (because nobody actually reads books, right? They just read reviews, and the people who write reviews of academic material generally have a vested interest in it)

Arcadium Trancefer: Oh no, you just called me 'Dinky'! Should I open a can of coop case worms on you, or get Plutocow to do it for me?

Ozzyboo: While I considered using actual examples of poor argumentation from RW in my Manual of Argumentation, I've decided not to. I will be using examples I've seen on other sites, though. What exactly is your claim that I am acting in bad faith by writing a manual of argumentation based on? And why would writing a manual of argumentation be 'patronizing' "even" if I was acting in good faith? RW already has a page explaining the structure of an argument. Presumably you would find that page to be 'patronizing'? Why would it be a bad thing to give people the opportunity to learn how to make better arguments and identify poor ones? Near the end of my introduction I stated that anyone is welcome to help create the manual. I would greatly appreciate help from anyone who is capable of helping as it would take some of the enormous workload off of me. By the way, unless you were agreeing with me, I don't think you know what poisoning the well means.

What do you think is more likely, that I am a troll who wants to spend countless hours helping the people calling me a troll (among other name-calling) do a better job of calling me a troll, or that I am so embarrassed for the people who have been cajoling me that I am willing to spend countless hours helping everyone learn how to effectively construct proper arguments and respond to improper ones so that they have more tools in their social toolbox than the ones they haphazardly learned on the playground at primary school? Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to wait until I've actually posted any portion of the manual other than the introduction, before judging it?

If you would rather I dutifully accept my label as a troll and play that character exactly how you expect me to, then I'm going to have to disappoint you. If you think there is some better way for me to react to the unfounded hypocritical bullying I've been the target of, I'd love to hear any reasonable suggestions. If I lose the coop case, it's going to take me far longer than 22 days to write the manual anyway, so it seems to me that writing the manual would be a far greater punishment that I've inflicted on myself than any punishment doled out by the coop case. On a related note, it has taken me nearly three hours to write these responses, time I would much rather devote to writing the manual! FairDinkum (talk) 06:53, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

The person speaking out in support of you was this cunt who is permabanned. That's why his comments were removed. Spud (talk) 10:33, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, well that link doesn't go to a person, but that's probably because the account was deleted. According to the fossil record the account name was SkyNet. I saw it just before I was heading to bed so I didn't have time to respond to it. I assumed the person removed it themselves. It did seem strangely eager, calling my lynching a terrible 'cyber-crime'. Could be a false flag sock, wouldn't that be hilarious if I started gushing over a troll account? Glad I didn't take the bait. FairDinkum (talk) 11:11, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

"Could you please quote me making those alleged accusations?" For the record: "Yeah, interested in doxxing me, probably..." "BTW, Ace, a mature, functional person who engaged in a behavior that blatantly looked like it was heading toward doxing, even though that was not their intention, would respond with something like this: "I can see why you would be concerned, but I assure you my intention was not to dox you." Instead you respond exactly the way a person who was trying to dox me would, that is, by pretending that I'm totally out of line for even mentioning the possibility. In fact, at no point in this discussion have you ever said that your intention was not to dox me. You've just been trying to gaslight me into thinking I made some kind of terrible social faux pas. I think it's rather obvious that the reason you're upset is because I saw through your cringingly transparent plan." 192․168․1․42 (talk) 11:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Duh gay agunda aht Walmart

Seriously though. In Walmart's book section I saw a spike in gay young adult graphic novels; namely one called "Heartstopper" I am honestly shocked considering the homophobic sentiment in my area.

The gay agenda is here to turn everything queer ([insert evil laugh here]). --Trans Fem Agenda 17:55, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

we are everywhere, even if we have to be more discrete in some areas than others. dont you have grindr on your phone? AMassiveGay (talk) 18:13, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't have Grinder. --Trans Fem Agenda 18:44, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Walmart mainly exists to make money. Heartstopper is a youth graphic which best-selling and has a TV show. Walmart orders product regionally. Michigan is rated 'fair' in LGBT issues. Thus, your local Walmart gets a stack of graphics to sell. It's one of the nicer elements of consumerist capitalism; what is produced is what sells, it makes no judgement calls on what is being sold [or not]. [Which is why sometimes 'Corp America' is in fact a better barometer of social opinions than say, voting or polling].

But I also echo Gay's point here; just because they're not as visible as in the major metros doesn't mean that they don't exist in your locality [though I would hazard they're not the main target demographic for the graphic in question]. Lastly, is it possible you're mistaking the existence of a minority of very loud bigots for being the 'mainstream opinion' of the area? I mean, this wouldn't be the first time, would it?

If you're there frequently, I would be vaguely tempted to keep a mental tally on how quickly they sell. KarmaPolice (talk) 06:54, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Walmart does not actually embody this ideal of capitalism. Famously they censored CDs, either declining to sell or selling redacted versions of non-"family values" material. As the largest record store in the nation, they warped the entire music market for decades. Hence I do find it a little surprising that they sell books that might offend the average Arkansas consumer. Jno.skinner (talk) 07:43, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I would argue that in that case, Walmart did accurately gauge at least, the majority of their market base at the time [which is not exactly 'public opinion' but is sure as hell a wider demographic than say, the appeal of Fox News or a particular brand of Fundie Christianity]. What's more, in the 1990s [the heyday of this] WalMart had onlyjust hit the more 'liberal' states in New England and the West Coast and was catering to the moral panics of Boomer parents. The world's changed, and with it the definition of 'Family Values' - I think the average Xer/Millennial parent now worries more about sexual/violent stuff than the fact that it features a boy who likes another boy. Anyway, Heartstopper may not be uniformly stocked; regional managers [and sometimes store managers] are usually given a bit of leeway in what they stock [taking into account local demand, demographics etc] and so it's quite possible it's not on sale in the more backward parts of the country. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:50, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Heartstopper looks like a romance series aimed for tweens (so more or less cutesy and coming-of-age, no "naughty stuff"), only the stock characters are homosexual young teen men. We're two decades removed from stuff like Brokeback Mountain where even the wails of Michael Medved didn't move the needle much. Media diversity has exploded since then. I actually think that this is "below the radar" of the increasingly elderly moral screechers (at least, I haven't seen any commentary yet among that class), and far less people care about homosexuality these days anyways (which is why the conservative boogeyman has focused on the trans). Even among the "Arkansas consumer" there is some opinion differences, not everyone stuck in "flyover territory" is a raging Fox News watching Ed Anger style culture warrior.

Walmart at any rate has "less control" over the direction of media these days, thanks to the Internet and other outlets. It appears that this (originally) webcomic started on Tumblr and became very popular there before getting published, followed by moving to Netflix where it got a very nice popularity bump. So Walmart can either chose to either carry it, or not carry it and have everyone who wants this order off of Amazon. As there appears to be no controversy of any sort at the moment, why wouldn't they carry it? BobJohnson (talk) 13:51, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Of all that, I think 'below the radar' is the most explainable; or more correctly, 'the radar is so full of targets'. If the 1990s was 'finger in the dike' territory [no pun intended] for the old Moral Majority types regarding 'this sort of thing' the 2020s is 'Canute yelling at sea' and it's already up to their knees. America has moved on, they have not; channelling my old 'cultist programming' I suspect they've been increasingly hating of Walmart ever since they started offering 'da gays' spousal health cover [2014]. Possibly much earlier; I mean I suspect they've been selling condoms, Hallowe'en costumes, beer and copies of Harry Potter long before this.

You're also right on demographics; 'flyover territory' has a lot of variations within it; not just the mid-sized metros or even 'college town' pockets but even any settlement larger than say, 50k shall have some folks who you'd stereotypically think would never survive in such a locale [sometimes more, depending on the makeup of the economy]. Even Arkansas has Democratic support [using this as a vague benchmark for 'not fundie'] of between 30-35% - something which you'd not really pick up from afar, watching them elect any old idiot as long as they had [R] after their name on the ballot. The point here is that a rough-ready rule seems to be that you need 100k population so support a Walmart 'Supercenter'. Thus, the wider you make your possible customer share the more Walmarts a location can support.

But you hit the key bit without really realising it; 'So Walmart can either chose to either carry it, or not carry it and have everyone who wants this order off of Amazon.' Walmart don't want you to order Heartstopper from Amazon because there's a decent risk you'll also 'while you're at it' also order that tube of silicone sealant for that dodgy tile in the bathroom, stock up on sanitary products and pick up a couple of packs of thick socks for work after noticing they're 'on a deal' [items you would have also got from Walmart]. They're even more fearful Amazon shall send up a pop-up saying 'did you know we now do Amazon Fresh to your location?' and you divert at least part of your 'boring staples' shop to them instead of well, Walmart. Thus, stocking Heartstopper is one tiny bit of the fightback to provide as much of America's needs so they remain your first port of call for your shopping needs. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:24, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

The British Medical Journal view on caring for young people with gender dysphoria

Ok this is huge:

• John Launer describes the hostility and criticism that colleagues experienced at London’s Tavistock Clinic in striving “to make the best decisions they could in a situation where evidence was thin and the politics noisy” (doi:10.1136/bmj.p477).

• The BMJ also admits that that its has a longstanding and leading position in acknowledging the limits of evidence and advocating against overdiagnosis and overtreatment—even when the state of the science disagrees with individual preferences.

• Cass’s final report will be delivered this year, but her interim report’s effect has been to question the evidence behind interventions, other than psychological support, being offered to young people seeking gender transition. Similar shifts are evident in other countries, such as Sweden. Could this be the end of puberty blockers and such for under 18s??

• The US, however, has moved in the opposite direction. An investigation by The BMJ finds that more and more young people are being offered medical and surgical intervention for gender transition, sometimes bypassing any psychological support (doi:10.1136/bmj.p382).

The last paragraph is the huge kicker and blows away everything

If we have the best interests of young people at heart, then surely our duty is to offer evidence informed care? And, if the evidence base is weak, we must provide the necessary support to young people as well as prioritising research to answer questions on issues that are causing a great deal of distress, much of which is amplified by social media. Taking this route is essential: an evidence void not only exposes people to overtreatment but can also be used to deny people the care that they seek, such as through the draconian laws now being introduced in some US states (doi:10.1136/bmj.p533).6 A better appreciation of the evidence, as well as the limits of medicine, is also the basis of a more constructive dialogue.

I am currently waiting for the full Cass report sometime this year. But this is definitely going to not going to make anyone happy. However, I always base my opinion on the data. Thoughts on above article?

Everwhere100 (talk) 07:37, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

What is the nature of the 'evidence' they feel is so important to find? Evidence of what? Evidence that the Tavistock Institute may not have been funded well enough to provide adequate supports, and therefore focused on treatment that was, while by no means perfect, prioritized clients wishes? FairDinkum (talk) 09:28, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

See also here: RationalWiki:Saloon_bar/Archive433#The_BMJ. This new article seems to follow and be informed by the BMJ article I alluded to in that archived post, which uncritically cites a Florida medical body (the state's Agency for Health Care Administration or AHCA) stacked by Ron DeSantis with ("for faith reasons" anti-gay and anti-trans) Catholic Medical Association people (i.e. the very people rubberstamping the laws this guy just called draconian). The Sweden decision was largely citing the British decision, which if I'm not mistaken was even overturned in British court later on. Chillpilled (talk) 14:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

By the way, I would not rule out that the evidence is probably weaker than ideal (how often is that ever not the case with a treatment really), however what we do have is nigh exclusively on the side of it being good treatment. That much is demonstrated by a separate citation in that BMJ article written by Jennifer Block, a review (https://doi.org/10.1210/jendso/bvab011) that found the gender care to have neutral or positive impacts in all studies. The current BMJ gripe seems to be "not strong enough evidence so maybe let's gatekeep more". I'm not so certain about that anymore... especially in the context of BMJ's native Britain, where waiting lists for trans people now get into the years — that Lancet article gives an average of a two year wait for a first appointment. This is such that even without added gatekeeping, somebody may get onto the waiting list while a minor, wait years and reach the age of adulthood, then have to be placed on a new waiting list for adults without ever having received a prescription. Chillpilled (talk) 14:45, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll throw a little "caution" from a United States perspective. I do have a general wariness of the medical industry here, seeing it as too prone to push unnecessary pills (eg over-prescriptions) and unnecessary surgeries and other treatment. So I'm open to a "constructive dialog" (if it really is one) on overtreatment for gender dysphoria.

However... what seems beyond the skills of anyone at this point (certainly not the talking head class) is exact statistics. For instance, exactly how many under-18s actually are getting gender re-assignment surgery? Since I can't find numbers from a Google search, I'm going to go with my speculation that the number is very, very small. If there were actually a lot of under-18s getting this surgery, the naysayers would certainly be cherry-picking these statistics left and right for their hysterics. Since they aren't, this feels like a moral panic where people are imagining a lot of things that simply aren't happening. You saw this happen with the "transgender in sports" issue as well (there are a few cases, but not many, meaning that by and large this was a moral panic over a small triviality as well.)

Likewise, there may be some under-18s on puberty blockers (probably more than those who got surgery). But how many? And were there too many cases where it was perhaps too far ahead of first-line treatment (psychological support), or were in most cases such treatment justified? If one perceives "overtreatment", show us the data to justify this opinion. BobJohnson (talk) 15:04, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

This has a lot of the numbers you seek: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/

I was surprised to learn from that source that genital surgeries (not talking about breast removals, reductions or augmentations which cisgender teenagers also receive) actually do take place a non-zero amount "among patients ages 13 to 17"; at least, there are insurance claims that they do (I've certainly heard a few stories about doctors giving baloney claims so a patient can get something else covered in this hellhole). It says 56 insurance claims were placed for those in the U.S. over a three-year period. So about 20 per year, maybe some more if others are paid completely out-of-pocket. It can be dismissed as triviality (it is, sure) but I also can't endorse those surgeries on people under 16 in good conscience, personally.

The amount of minors on puberty blockers or hormone therapy according to that source sees an increase year-over-year in the US currently, however in the UK this also happened and eventually led to the amount per year roughly evening out around 2018 onward. Chillpilled (talk) 16:00, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I pretty much am on the same page; the gender surgery number is very small (less than .1%), but I can't endorse gender surgery at that age either, not even the mastectomy (which also is less than 1% but at a higher amount of ~250 a year). Puberty blockers is a more fuzzy topic but even here it seems that only about 3% or so of those diagnosed with gender dysphoria choose this route, so even here it is a very small portion of the population. It's not zero, meaning, sure, the topic of whether some of this is overtreatment and/or too soon is worthy of discussion. But Libs of TikTok style hysterics are hardly called for. Most minor trans individuals do not take the medical route.BobJohnson (talk) 16:44, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, no, this is bullshit. Any time anyone mentions that minors are being overdiagnosed and overtreated for gender dysphoria I have the immediate urge to bash their skull open with a rock. The exact opposite problem exists. Additionally, even if gender affirming care for minors WAS not as obviously effective as it was (literally the entire body of evidence we have supports the conclusion that gender affirming care fot minors results in positive outcomes), the solution to a complicated medical problem is not to BAN the treatment for it. You may say "no one advocated to ban it", but the implication that this is a problem in need of a "Solution like Sweden" is an implication that we need to ban gender affirming care. --Ozzyboo (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

If you really feel like murdering people for a difference of opinion, even if that opinion were to be false opinion, you ought to seek the council of mental health professionals. Ariel31459 (talk) 21:29, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Nobody with any sort of intelligence is talking about entire bans of gender affirming care. Only a small portion of gender affirming care for minors is being discussed, by one medical journal (there are others and for all I know they might disagree), from the point of view of what the best treatment is, and as far as I can tell as a discussion topic only. The conclusions might end up being the same as current consensus (where it seems that by and large medicine and surgery is discouraged for minors, but it is available for certain cases). All medicine and surgery has side effects and pluses and minuses, as well as in some cases things that cannot be undone. So my personal wariness comes from that angle. But even this notwithstanding, even surgery may still be the best thing for a few cases though, it's possible, none of us know the individual details from a broad statistic.

I know sources like the Daily Fail (and similar sources) pounced on the BMJ article via some fine cherry-picking to promote their transphobic viewpoint. But anyone of any intelligence knows that the Daily Fail is dogshit. But this will be the biggest "issue" with the BMJ article: they just waded into an area of considerable politics, and the activists are certainly willing to pounce in order to promote their dumb yelling. BobJohnson (talk) 17:55, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

This has prompted me to dig further into SBM's mentions of the BMJ in their older articles. I'm returning more worrying results than I expected. This one is probably most notable. I don't want to dump the whole list of examples here really but it's clearly not just Gorski who's covered their shortcomings or potential shortcomings, which is what I had previously thought.

Oh, but that all said, I've also returned some interesting stuff published by the BMJ. Here about coffee, and here they're mentioned for publishing a study about vapes fucking exploding which is not something that I knew happened. Chillpilled (talk) 22:20, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

[Vaping aside] Of course - your mobile phone can explode. Almost all refillable vape devices rely on the same critical element - Lithium batteries to heat up the liquid to turn into inhaleable vapour. Then you have the issues of knockoff/imported devices which don't conform to product safety regs [or on occasion, those regs being too loose] and/or people modding their current devices which pushes them into unsafe territories [such as making it so hot the plastic parts start to fail]. That article you've linked is fairly-well written, but they've missed several points [and have at least two 'lying by ommission' bits] which shall reduce it's strength as a credible, 'impartial' source. Lastly, it seems to have completely ignored all information/experiences from overseas. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:38, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Comic recommendations

Does anyone have any recommendations for any good comics and/or graphic novels? For me I'd have to recommend Batman: Year 100 and Kraven's Last Hunt. Year 100 in particular is criminally underrated, with a cyberpunk theme of creeping technological authoritarianism in the far off future of 2039. It was originally planned to be included in the "America's Best Series" list of 2008, but DC denied it's inclusion for "unknown reasons." It's won two Eisner Awards instead. Vee^Meow? 19:52, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Try anything that's popular in Serbia, such as Dylan Dog, Zagor, Alan Ford, Tex etc. I haven't read them tho, but I see them a lot in kiosks.ASerb (talk) 07:20, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Cages by Dave McKean Cardinal Chang (talk) 20:01, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Anything by Terry Moore; Strangers In Paradise is outstanding. For ultimate the ultimate Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill experience, anything in the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series is excellent. Jim Starlin's 1975 Adam Warlock/Thanos saga from Marvel's Strange Tales 178-181 and Warlock 9-15 remain one of my all time favorites. I also highly recommend Jodorowsky and Moebius' The Incal series. The Moore/Bisette/Totleben run on Swamp Thing in the 80s is excellent. And if you haven't yet read it, Maus is a masterpiece; a great way to read it is to get ahold all of the original issues of Raw and read Maus in a serialized form with all the wonderful underground stuff Spiegelman and Francois stuffed in. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 20:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

If Batman is your cup of tea, Batman: Europa[10] is fun. Batman: The Black Glove[11] is my personal favorite. TLoEG: The Black Dossier[12] is a masterpiece.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 20:39, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Webcomics? I'd go...

Gunnerkrigg Court, XKCD, SMBC, Schlock Mercenary (finished), 8 Bit Theatre (finished), Order of the Stick (final chapter), Goblins, Rusty & Co, Erfworld (discontinued), Girl Genius, Dresdon Codak, Oglaf (nsfw), Cyanide and Happiness, The Oatmeal, Scandinavia and the World, Manly Guys doing Manly Things (finished). Honestly, if you've no idea, just go on TVTropes and find the webcomics that have tropes named after them; it's not perfect, but there is a general function where the odds a comic (or other work) names a trope is equal to the quality divided by the popularity. E.g., Family Guy named 3 tropes and has like 20 seasons, whereas Futurama has only 10 seasons and named 16 tropes, ergo Futurama is the higher quality show. CorruptUser 22:05, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Re-reading Maus right now - it is worth it. I'm also planning to get hold of a couple of Asterix's books to see what it's like to read them at thrice the age I last did. May try Tintin again [didn't like it first time around, but I didn't like beer then either...]. I shall also admit to being a bit of a fan of the magazine Viz, but don't think that's something which would work for anyone who's not been raised on a UK council estate. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:08, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll second everything KarmaPolice said and add a recommendation for Lucky Luke too. Spud (talk) 02:32, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

There's Black Hammer, not that its good, just that its interesting. I remember The Wicked + The Divine with fondness, childish maybe but enjoyable. Of course, The Sandman from Neil Gaiman is a classic series. SolPyre (talk) 05:21, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

May I also recommend Sandman Mystery Theatre? It was a revamp of a Golden Age DC hero, and features exploration of themes of sexism, racism, classism, police brutality, psychology and more. The villains are suitably terrifying for a comic with (admittedly tenuous) links to Sandman by Neil Gaiman and the characters are well-rounded and developed. They read like actual people and not caricatures. As for webcomics, Darth and Droids is pretty good, especially the Prequel stuff. It has named several tropes on, well, TVTropes, and the name of a few tropes used to be named after stuff from Darths and Droids. Vee^Meow? 13:32, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Not sure if anyone else knows about it but the Bone series by Jeff Smith is pretty good. Blacksad is also a good series.Crazymantis91 (talk) 00:20, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

KarmaPolice: If you've never seen the animated Tintin show from the 90s you should track it down, it's nearly identical to the books, except without most of the racism. The animation is well done. FairDinkum (talk) 08:55, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

As for continental European comics, I think Corto Maltese (by Hugo Pratt, published in the 70's-80's) deserves to be better known. It's some adventure stories (with sometimes a bit of magic realism) of a sailor in the beginning of the 20th century, a bit everywhere in the world (pacific islands, Venice, Siberia, Argentina, Ireland, ...), with a lot of historical and cultural reference. Cauch (talk) 17:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

I recently read Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohammed and I found it quite lovely-Hastur! (talk) 08:46, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Novel I'm writing

So for the last few months I've been forming the backstory for a ww2 alternate history novel. The idea is on the Eastern front, that the Case Blue operation to capture the Oil fields in the Caucasus region was successful and relatively quick enough to inflict a sudden loss of 80% oil production to the Soviets (a part I want to emphasis is how speed for this operation is vital, if the Soviets had realised the German intentions and could not prevent the loss of the oil fields, they could slow them down long enough to destroy the oil fields, build their reserves and find new oil fields somewhere else therefore negating some damage from the loss of the caucasus) the first act by the Soviets is to retake the oil fields fast. But the battle becomes a stalemate with neither side willing to budge, the Soviet high command is starting to worry about their fuel reserves starting to deplete fast, the days wind down and 2 choices become clear

1. Attempt another advance to recapture the oil fields before the germans can destroy them(again speed will become a critical factor)

2. Retreat on all fronts

All factors are considered and it seems retreat is the only viable long term option.

The question is where and how

The Ural mountains seem like a viable option, dense mountains, rough terrain, plenty of options for waging guerilla warfare.

So Soviet citizens in the east are set to work fortifying the Ural mountains, with bunkers, outposts, fortresses tunnels, underground farms, pipes and equipment for drawing water from springs, traps, minefields, ammunition depots, artillery placements everything you need for waging guerilla warfare.

With this set up, the Soviet military forces need to do 4 things, retreat, leave soldiers behind to hold back the germans, enact the scorched earth policy, and organise a deception campaign to mislead the germans for a period of time and than lure them into the Ural mountains.

The scorched earth policy I've been working on, the Soviets destroy the critical infrastructure of every town and city, but they make sure that moscow is nothing but rubble, to prevent a moral victory for the germans and show them how much they will sacrifice before they surrender.

Anyway that's the idea, tell me what you think and give me some feedback I'd really appreciate it! ^{— Unsigned, by: 110.151.89.228 / talk / contribs}

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 03:36, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Case Blue was a dead end. Supply problems had already choked the German war machine by then, and the further they pushed into southern Russia the worse it got. The reason the offensive stalled where it did was because the panzers were sitting for days on end waiting for fuel to keep going. Even if the Germans had somehow managed to win at Stalingrad, the possibility of them pushing almost twice as far to get to the Azeri oil fields is basically nil.

That’s why I like works like the novel Fatherland, where it begins postwar and simply hand waves the German victory in favor of focusing on the implications it had for the world. Trying to get into the nitty gritty details of a German victory without tripping your reader’s bullshit sensors and thus breaking suspension of disbelief is almost impossible. Besides, the geopolitical and societal impacts of a German victory are more interesting than the military stuff anyways. I’d say focus on that. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 06:03, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

This topic/scenario has been done to death, and most likely your scenario already exists, done by someone more skilled than you. I'd personally query whether the story you're writing needs such a backstory in the firstplace. As Moosolini points out, you may be able to keep it vague to the point the reader cannot even really tell 'the world's' backstory - I mean, imagine a novel set in 2023. We use terms like 'the Pandemic', 'Great Recession', 'altie', 'the war' and so on with nay a explanation. Fiction-writers usually use various forms of infodumping to 'scratch the itch' on the backstory etc. An itch which half the time doesn't need to be scratched. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:50, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Try looking at the Alternative History Wiki to see what has already been covered. Anna Livia (talk) 19:35, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

This topic/scenario has been done to death, and most likely your scenario already exists, done by someone more skilled than you.

That's a rather mean thing to say. Not everything has to satisfy arbitrary standards of originality. And whose to say whether BoN is incapable of writing a novel that exceeds the quality set by existing novels on that topic? We don't even know anything about BoN other than that they're writing an alternate history novel about WW2. BoN may even be writing a novel that, while not exceeding the quality set by existing novels, could be published online for free, or even for a price that is less than much of the existing material on the topic. I'm planning to write a manual of Argumentation for RW that will be based on material composed by someone far more qualified to cover the topic than I am, but the value in my work will in a large part be in its accessibility. FairDinkum (talk) 05:59, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

A better way of saying what you might have meant could have been, "There are already a lot of alternate history novels about WW2, so yours better be good if you hope to attract an audience." FairDinkum (talk) 06:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Boo hoo. They'll hear worse if they're an aspiring writer. And I did say 'most likely', not 'for certain'; leaves the door open that they could really 'nail it' the previous writers didn't. What's more, I know just enough about this topic to know that the majority of details/backstory/worldbuilding shall end up being ID'd as 'fat' and thus shall be hacked off accordingly. Therefore, why bother writing this stuff in the first place? Have a rough idea of it jotted down somewhere yes, make the occasional reference to it within the work, yes. But leave it like that. I mean, [for example] The Road you never find out what 'the Event' was. KarmaPolice (talk) 07:15, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

"Boo hoo. They'll hear worse if they're an aspiring writer."

Great example of the not as bad as fallacy, also known as the fallacy of relative privation. Brings back fond memories of Dawkins' involvement in Elevatorgate. I suspect your suggestions would be more compelling to the potential author if they were presented in a less insulting manner. You can't expect everyone to be a masochist! FairDinkum (talk) 09:57, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Could have said a lot worse than that. Plus, saying 'alternative WW2 has been done to death' is more a statement of basic fact than anything subjective on my part. Lastly, I was deliberately a bit brusque in the intention to making the OP consider whether doing such a detailed backstory/worldbuild was actually vital for the piece itself. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Well the book is supposed to be an unofficial prequel to Fatherland by Robert Harris, its supposed to explain the backstory of Fatherland more in depth than what the novel itself did Petrograd (talk) 01:17, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

About that Turkey in NATO poll:

Wow, this is a dumb. I don't think I should have to spell out why kicking a country that has great influence over the most important land connection between Asia and Europe and the two largest seas in Europe out of NATO is, conceptually, really poor on a strategic level. Guys, if Turkey leaves NATO, they'll go to Russia. Please hold your shit together despite the person running the country at the moment, Turkey conceptually being in NATO is a good thing. --Ozzyboo (talk) 19:07, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I shouldn't be concerned about the poll Ozzy. Popular opinions towards the Erdogan government will not change the Nato membership status of Turkey and even if they could, we are not, as a wiki, generally associated with opinions coincident with anything described as popular.UncleKrampus (talk) 19:30, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Ozzy. Having Turkey as an unreliable ally is better than losing access to the Black Sea. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 20:34, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Turkey being in NATO hasn't made a blind bit of difference to anyone's access to the Black Sea. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 22:57, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that these days, Turkey’s strategic importance is mostly about its air bases near the Middle East’s hot zones. USAF used them a lot while striking DAESH. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:00, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkey closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits to warships except for ships returning to home base, which is probably more significant to hindering Russian military aims than to hindering NATO.[13] Bongolian (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Which is something that is allowed under the 1936 - that's 1936 - Montreaux Convention that governs the straights still - so not anything that is related to NATO. USSR attempting to gain more control of the straights in the 1946 pretty much resulted in Turkey joining NATO 6 years later. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 02:11, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, as I argued when that poll first appeared. My reasoning for keeping Turkey in was the same Johnson didn't fire Hoover from the FBI; better to have Erdogan pissing out than him pissing in. Plus, membership gives us a little pull over a man/party who generally speaking, has more ideological sympathy with Putin than us. KarmaPolice (talk) 05:55, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

NATO is a defense alliance, Aloysius the Gaul is correct, NATO provides no support for staging attacks on ISIS. Stating otherwise just feeds into the myth that Russia is justified in attacking Ukraine for fear of NATO expansion compromising Russian defense. NATO can only compromise Russian offense. FairDinkum (talk) 09:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain that in Putin's mind, offense = defense. Kencolt (talk) 10:18, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I should probably clarify that having Erdoğan in NATO is consequentially pretty bad, considering how his nationalist dickwaving is actively hindering potential NATO membership to countries like Sweden. I'm just saying that, conceptually, Turkey in NATO is a good thing. A reasonable person in charge of Turkey would probably change people's tunes very quickly about this topic. --Ozzyboo (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Said dickwaving is [I suspect] mainly for domestic consumption. Isn't there a general election coming up in like six months time there? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:40, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there is, and Turkey's economy is so bad right now that polls have been showing a neck-and-neck race. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:00, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

2 months, and it's not neck and neck, the opposition is polling 10-15 points ahead. --Ozzyboo (talk) 16:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Holy shit holy shit I hope he loses. Fingers fucking crossed! Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:42, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

An interesting tale from the land of shitposters

Earlier this year, a small neo-Nazi group named the Goyim Defense League, who are mainly known for distributing virulent anti-Semitic flyers, digital projections, banners, and other stunts, relocated to northeast Florida after becoming a pariah in the California bay area. They have, er, not exactly been well received here either. In particular, a Volusia county sheriff named Mike Chitwood went, er, pretty ballistic against these guys (at least according to the Daily Beast, so take with grain of salt).

Now, naturally, this sheriff did not resonate well with the neo-Nazis "fine upstanding citizens" lurking in 4chan /pol/. So queue the long thread in 4chan with the exact type of reaction and call to brigade you expect. Including, of course, an "anon" writing that one should "just shoot Chitwood in the head and murder him", adding "in Minecraft" because I guess that's the 4chan meme for lame "just kidding" attempts. Of course, this is not enough... a few days ago, this "anon" (supposedly) was arrested for allegedly making this threat.

The arrest video of the guy showed the exact type of stereotype you expect of a 4Chan /pol/ user (leading to argumentum ad cellarium/"behold the master race" type snickers on social media), but apart from the snark that's not terribly interesting. What is perhaps interesting to me is recent change in Florida law that may have aided this case. In later 2021, the Florida legislature changed their electronic crimes law (836.10). The changed language means that under the current text, it does seem to read that now, merely *making* a death threat online is, punishable by a second degree felony, no matter what the motivation. (EG: There is no specific requirements of imminent threats like is more typical with these laws in America.)

The imperative for the looser language seems to have come from events like the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, where the perpetrator posted a lot of "warning signs" online. So there's an interesting "how far is too far?" type angle with these sort of laws, as imminent violence advocacy has never been free speech, and people want solutions to all these mass shootings etc. And reading cases, it's clear that in some cases police have used social media to stop people who were credible threats. So you can see why there was a legislative push (which passed nearly unanimously, btw).

But in other cases this law was used, though, first impression (reading from news articles, so take with grain of salt) was of some dumb kid "blowing off steam" or pulling a prank. This case, while not seemingly of a kid, seems more a shitpost than credible threat just based on what I can tell off of news stories (although there's a part of me that's sympathetic to this being a bit "more serious" given what appears to be calls to harass the sheriff en masse in the same thread and given the rather direct text). So overall, while I understand the motive for the law changes, it now seems "too loose" and ripe for abuse (and in my view might be struck down by the courts due to this), "shitpost" and "second degree felony" just don't go together unless said shitpost really will lead to violence IMHO. It is perhaps a warning to not rush to making laws regarding this sort of thing, it would not have taken too much additional language to prevent questionable usage by law authorities. (But of course that's too much to expect from the Florida Legislature these days...)

I will also add, though, that this is, of course, perhaps a warning to the alt-right types as well, who tend to worship the strongmen as solutions for all problems. Be careful for the authoritarianism you might wish for. You might get it.BobJohnson (talk) 18:21, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Supposedly, this right here is the post he made. If so, he didn't threaten the guy himself, but did advocate for his murder very explicitly (saying "Just shoot Chitwood in the head and murder him" does not offer a lot of wiggle room). Chillpilled (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact." What purpose is this arrest supposed to serve? 192․168․1․42 (talk) 14:33, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Dragging a 4chan Nazi out of his room and in front of a camera is the main purpose, I assume. Are you really suggesting he was unserious though? I would be shocked if they don't get him on something for that post. This couldn't have happened to a better guy and almost couldn't have gone down a funnier way unless he was literally dragged out of his mom's basement instead of from upstairs. However that's just the schadenfreude talking. Chillpilled (talk) 18:52, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I'd be really surprised if you couldn't find video of Chitwood's news conference online, choice bits of which aired on Orlando and other TV stations. It was most excellent. Zontar (talk) 17:03, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Spud is a published author!

I am one of the three credited co-authors of this journal article. Here's a citation:

Y. -C. Liu, S. P. Hughes and W. -K. Chiou, "A Conversation About Quantum Literacy, the Chinese Classics and STEAM-based Education at University," in IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 9-12, February 2023, doi: 10.1109/MNANO.2022.3228150.

In case you don't know, I'm the one with an English name, not a Chinese one.

My friend Professor Liu and I had a hell of a job trying to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear we were given. I thought the first draft was intended for publication in the university's free student newspaper, not a prestigious international magazine. I also had to remove a load of woo from it. Earlier drafts were full of references to things the existence of which cannot be proven by science, like heaven and the soul. In fact, I think the course referred to in the article might be a Taoist indoctrination one disguised as a course in quantum physics. In which case, I hope nobody takes it.

But still, I'm chuffed to bits to be a published author. And the pun, "life, the university and everything". That was me. Spud (talk) 10:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Good for you, Spud!Jakester499 (talk) (contributions) 00:18, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

"STEAM"? So "art" is a rigorous discipline now? I mean, it's definitely worthy of some respect, but I feel like the art quality has gone down a bit since the mid 20th century when the various schools stopped rejecting applicants... CorruptUser 14:44, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@CorruptUser It doesn't just mean fine arts. It also incudes language arts (including literature, film studies, media studies and music), social sciences and humanities and physical arts (such as athletics). The arts integration in the paper I've co-authored refers to literature, philosophy and history. There's no drawing or painting involved this time. Spud (talk) 15:04, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

As an example that I know, music is certainly a "rigorous discipline" at a certain level. I know the popular stuff (pop music) is "street art" level which has less rigor overall (nothing wrong with this per se, of course), but for careers like classical orchestra work or the Broadway pit you will need to be able to sight-read sheet music (or write sheet music for composers) as well as be familiar with multiple stylistic conventions (Broadway music in particular these days has a habit of whipsawing through huge amount of genres).

Some careers also combine engineering type rigor with artistic elements, some careers I can think of in this vein would be architecture and web designers.BobJohnson (talk) 18:04, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Removing woo is kinda Eurocentric, you bigot. Just kidding.ASerb (talk) 16:07, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

So... which college majors are excluded by "STEAM"? Business, Education, Social Work, Criminal Justice? CorruptUser 16:50, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

All that you listed, I think.ASerb (talk) 17:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@CorruptUser@ASerbNone of them would be excluded from STEAM and all of them could be at least partially taught using STEAM education. Spud (talk) 09:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

So what majors are excluded? CorruptUser 14:55, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@CorruptUser No college majors are excluded from STEAM. That's because "the arts" really covers everything that isn't science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Spud (talk) 03:56, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Congratulations Spud. Living the life of the mind is no easy task for most of us.Ariel31459 (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Ace is also a published author so knows how good it feels. Aceⁱ⁹ 18:24, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Spud Good on ya! Where do the Chinese classics come into it (after you removed the woo)? If you don't mind me asking. It just seems like such an odd combination. SolPyre (talk) 21:31, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@SolPyreYou may well ask! And yes, it is an odd combination. I suppose Professor Chiou has found some connection between quantum physics and the Chinese classics but I really don't know what it is. What I do know is that the physicists Niels Bohr and Wolfgang Pauli were mad keen on Chinese culture and connections were made between the theories of theoretical physicist David Bohm and Chinese philosophy (but not by him). Still, provided there is no Taoist indoctrination involved, if the course can interest someone from an arts background in quantum physics or interest someone from a science background in literature, history or philosophy, I think that's all for the good. Spud (talk) 09:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Holy shit, dude. Congrats! That's mad impressive. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 22:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Congratulations are in order for your achievement. --Trans Fem Agenda 23:52, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Glad to hear it Spud! ^{— Unsigned, by: 96.4.208.114 / talk}

Congratulations! Bongolian (talk) 21:59, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

What's the connection between "Quantum" Literacy and Chinese classics? Everwhere100 (talk) 02:28, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@Everwhere100 See my response to SolPyre above. Spud (talk) 02:57, 18 March 2023 (UTC)