RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive467

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, (new)(back)

Recent WIGO Post: Trump compiling list of military officers for court-martial

So... I read the NBC news headline then read the article, and I have a sick feeling that the unofficial goal of it all is to replace military leaders with Trump yes-men. Anyone else with the same feeling? Impiricism (talk) 21:07, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

"It can't possibly happen here." Guess what, it not only can happen here, it is happening here. God bless the USA /s. Carthage (talk) 21:20, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

You don't need that feeling. Trump only likes yes-men. He was butthurt when 'his generals' turned out to be loyal to something more than his wonderful face. Expect similar for judges, FBI investigators, Secret Service and so on.

If he gets this through, you're all fucked. Let's read the military oath [with my annotations in italics];

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States [which is defined by a MAGA SCOTUS] against all enemies, foreign and domestic [defined by the Orange One]; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States [duh] and the orders of the officers appointed over me [appointed by the Orange One], according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice [defined by Congress].

The path past this is simple. Mass protests > invoke the Insurrection Act > order use of US troops on their own people. It's what I heard that the Orange One wanted during the BLM riots which the DoD denied him [to the point I spent that night online loudly calling for folks to not give Trump a reason to invoke that act]. Now, it's semi-popular to think 'oh it's just words' but examples from say, Nazi Germany and even the Revolutionary War tell us that oaths are powerful things and it will take a lot of pressure for it to buckle, esp for military folks where 'obey the chain 'o command' is literally, built in to the whole fucking system.

The only realistic hope is that the American officer corps is intelligent and well-read enough to know what happened to their German counterparts when they acquiesced in the dominance of National Socialism. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Not that America hasn't declined from its peak already, but I sense a very strong possibility that Trump may seriously cripple the American military machine this time around, furthering the decline. If Trump's direction for the military (which was absolutely clear before the election, mind you) is to infiltrate it, replace the leaders with yes men, and directing the military to spend infinite amount of time internally fighting domestic matters like "woke" and "DEI" and immigrants and all the other Fox News manufactroversy bullshit, there will be little time for alliances like NATO and multiple other world political matters. Mind you, many of the rubes would cheer this anyways (and there are good reason to argue against much of what the neoconservatism hawks have done for sure), but I don't think the jingoism spouting types have fully, er, *comprehended* what a loss of American military might really mean. Certainly autocrats trying to build their own world empires to overtake America, whether "ragtag, can't even take over a small country quickly, empire unlikely" (Vladimir Putin) or "nice try so far, shame about all those other previous poor policies now blocking growth" (Xi Jinping), I'm sure they are pleased that -- for all their problems -- Trump's likely to send America's armed forces into chaos *at minimum*, diminish its power further, and maybe open up some "opportunities". At any rate, I do hope that any country that does overly rely on America for military needs has gotten the "signal" that, while 2016 was a great time to argue for "diversification", the argument in 2024 is much stronger. BobJohnson (talk) 22:59, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I'll put is more glibly; you name me a military which was more effective after an politically-driven purge had happened to it. My ultimate fear is that if there's a 'neutered' American military which is much more focused on 'attacking the home front' there's a very good chance that Xi shall come to the conclusion 'the time for Taiwan is now 'and makes a move. I get the feeling that US military might is tied up perhaps too much into 'visible signs' like say, all those carrier groups which might be very vulnerable to say, wave after wave of old Chinese planes turned into kamikaze drones [which the Chinese have been stockpiling for at least a decade now...]. The more worrying is the level of right-populists on the rise in Europe; an America 2028 could very be facing a 'Chinese Axis' without European assistance save perhaps the UK. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:18, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Actually, that's exactly what's happening. Nothing "unofficial" about it. Carthage (talk) 09:14, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

So trump is throwing people under the bus over his own stupid choices? wow, what a surprise. more breaking news at 11. The G (talk) 23:52, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the point is that the Orange One appears to be seriously planning to pull this and almost to a person the 'Republican Party' is perfectly cool with it. But if Biden/Obama/Clinton had even remotely even thought of this they would have screamed 'dictatorship!' until they'd lost their voice. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

National socialism is as socialist as a people's democratic republic is a a democracy. it's not a real argument against socialism, if a Nazi wants to steal wealth by othering that won't work, nor is it really that smart to think a democratic republic can't become bonkers insane in hegemony. But, and this is where I really trust the US, we are basically impossible to govern through authoritarianism. Torrent (talk) 02:59, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Shrooms and Ethics in Bodycam Journalism

I posted a video of a guy tripping on shrooms as he got arrested on the Discord and someone said they think channels like this are exploitative and harmful. I certainly agree that the sphere is pretty chuddy for obvious reasons, but I'm not sure the format itself necessarily has to be. Even under socialism, we'll need some form of law enforcement to deal with drunk drivers, domestic abuse and the like, and some people really don't handle that situation well! Do you think it's ethical to consume this content? What are your thoughts? IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 10:46, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

This guy was on someone else's private property (store owner), and out in public (to and from the store). He has no right to privacy with regard to being filmed in these situations. The filming in this case is beneficial to the public since it can be used as court evidence and has the added benefit of helping to keep the cops in line to not themselves do illegal shit. As to whether it's ethical for you to view this, I don't have an opinion. I think the bigger question is does it benefit you to view this type of material? There seems to be a big audience for this type of material nowadays, mainly as entertainment I think, which is not so great. There are ways that I think this can be beneficial to view though. If someone has acted badly in public or in stores before, or might be tempted to do so in the future, then watching some of these videos might be helpful as a preventative. Bongolian (talk) 18:39, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Given my experience being in psychiatric care due to drug-induced psychosis, having many family members who struggle with drug addiction, and knowing the extremes of mental illness first hand and through my education, I’d say filming anyone intoxicated when they are cognitively compromised is only justifiable provided the filming can be used to benefit the person filmed, benefit members of certain relevant marginalized communities, or is necessary for the purpose of public safety (where there considerable risk of someone being victimized). Otherwise it’s a violation of the individuals consent, and is not treating them with any resemblance of moral dignity. You have to keep in mind that with such examples we may know this individual to be under the influence of some drug voluntarily — but people also generalize to cases where people have been drugged against their will or are in the throws of psychotic episode (such as with schizophrenia). Normalizing filming people acting erratic in public may seem in many cases “deserved” but we don’t always have the context necessary to determine whether or not it really is the fault of the person acting erratically. This is all to say it depends, but generally if it isn’t necessary for the protection of someone vulnerable then it isn’t ethically acceptable either. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:41, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Of course, the obvious caveat here being that with bodycam recordings the relevant ethical consideration is not whether or not you can record (it would sort of defeat the purpose of having a body cam to begin with), but whether or not the footage should be published. You can just reinterpet what I said above to the justification of publishing such footage. Arguably that shouldn't be the choice of the police to begin with. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I mean, the nonviolent nature of the crime is one thing. Dude had some ideas, and if you ask me, scummy use of psychadelics. If you have an inclination to subvert social norms, which includes stealing, it's not a wonder tripping all day every day leads to antisocial behavior. And a gas station employee is told not to fight or chase, because the loss is very small. I don't think this is a very useful clip in terms of the dangers of psychadelics or the efficacy of police. Culprit ended by showing his privates, big whoop. Jail is probably the correct consequence. Torrent (talk) 04:51, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Thought Experiment: Vienna Convention DUI Plate

This thought has been with me for over a year, but here it goes. What would a DUI plate (aka a whiskey plate) look like in Europe under the Vienna Convention? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 13:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

My design proposal is that DUI license plates have a burnt orange colored bar on the left, as opposed to the blue bar on a regular license plate. Furthermore, any national symbols other than the country's ISO-assigned letter code are replaced with a new ISO-approved symbol for DUI. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 13:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I had to search what a "whiskey plate" is... they do not exist in Canada to my knowledge; if a person drives dangerously or gets into accidents (doesn't even have to be with another vehicle specifically), they get fined, their mandatory vehicle insurance goes up, they may be forced to take driving classes (that they must pay for), and ultimately they might have their license to drive suspended for long periods. The basic reasoning of whiskey plates is easy to comprehend, though I would argue that they have the potential to cause a lot more harm than good. Worst case scenario would be them being an unfair identifying source for abuse of people who genuinely are trying to improve. Impiricism (talk) 15:35, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

In the UK, folks convicted for drink/drugged driving almost always get driving bans [we're talking years], which means the only folks who'd get these would be those who have had said bans etc expire. So why bother doing this plate thing? KarmaPolice (talk) 17:09, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd never heard of whiskey plates either. And according to the above link, they're now only issued in 3 out of the 50 states in the US. I think it's really pointless to speculate on what they might look like in other countries because I have to agree with Impiricism and KarmaPolice that they're not a good idea. Convicted drivers should serve lengthy bans, but they shouldn't be branded for life. Spud (talk) 17:47, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I would take it, I agree that DUI offenders really naturally reoffend. Part of it is no public transport, but that's not an excuse. A red letter isn't the worst solution for something we all agree is a dumb decision. It's not like a human right to have sex, it's a human privilege to drive. Maybe a necessity, but man, I see so many awful drivers a day. I'd admit to my own reckless decision, because it's not Even adjacent to adultry. Torrent (talk) 04:56, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

They gathered up this country, sold it to the devil, and now it's going to hell, and they wonder how. (Excerpt from this song)

Trump is putting several people involved with Project 2025 in positions of power. If any of the moderates who voted for Trump is seeing this, we warned you. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 17:38, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The "moderate" Trump voter doesn't exist. Carthage (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't mean the 'Vote Trump every presidential election and believe everything he says' kind of voter, I mean the 'Moderate who voted for him because of naïveté about him and his policies' kind of voter. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 17:50, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

They're also known as the "low information voter" or "misinformation voter", who are almost as difficult to dose with reality. Bongolian (talk) 19:10, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Years back, I was talking to a friend, and his family couldn't do Christmas. The reason was the kids were vaccinated and grandpa was terrified of that. Nobody vaccinated allowed, spike proteins and gene therapy or some absolute bullshit, a man refused to see his grandchildren for fear. What a pussy. Torrent (talk) 05:20, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Reddit problems

Has anyone else been having problems with Reddit lately? Like it not loading correctly, or at all in some cases? Anyone have a clue what's up with that? Carthage (talk) 19:02, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, it just does that every once in a while. I dunno why. Kencolt (talk) 22:31, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I lurked on Reddit for a long time... eventually did create an account. But then Elon bought Twitter and Steve Huffman, Reddit's current CEO, said that Musk’s handling of Twitter is a example for Reddit to follow. Deleted my account shortly after. Impiricism (talk) 03:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Think there will eventually be another mass exodus? Seeing as Reddit got big from Digg going down, it would be a bit ironic. What would be the BlueSky equivalent? IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 08:21, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's already happening. While there's always going to be some general 'churn', there seems to be more dead/dying subs and ones locked due to lack of mods than say, a couple of years ago. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

@IntrepidSkeptic Lots of folks apparently moved from Reddit to Lemmy; Lemmy is free and open-source software for setting up and running one's own Reddit-like server... a key feature is that it allows users and information to easily communicate and move across other Lemmy servers. So if you're subscribed to lemmy.ca/c/politicalmemes but also want to see and comment on content from feddit.uk/c/memes (also a Lemmy server), you can do so without creating another account I believe. Per the Wikipedia page on Lemmy, Reddit actually banned discussion of it before reversing course due to the Streisand effect. Impiricism (talk) 18:53, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

My account was permanently suspended after someone on staff was convinced that I was engaged in ban evasion. Never mind that I never had any other accounts, let alone ever doing anything against the rules. Oh, I tried to appeal, but no luck. Either I posted from an IP address that was on the naughty list (possible, since I pick up work at schools), or someone was being an asshole, like the time someone falsely reported me for suicide threats. Paul S (talk) 13:18, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

This very well might be due to a lack of said 'staff'. As Musky basically said, staff are an overhead we can live without and Reddit for a long time relied [well, still does] for volunteers to do shit like modding [or even create content] and that's harder to justify if you're more glaringly aware that you're being used to plug staff gaps and to generate more profit. Inverse Gresham's Law; the 'good' mods leave, leaving the 'bad' mods who are now interacting with a lot less 'staff'. The 'strike' last year is from the looks of it is a perma walk-away; and this means [I bet] a lot of those functions have now been turned over to AI and well, they're shit. Appeals are pissing into the wind because it was an AI which did it and there's no human to appeal to, or a usless human did it and there's nobody to really appeal to.

Thinkpiece: https://www.zdnet.com/article/reddit-is-in-danger-of-a-death-spiral/

Which makes me wonder; that ultimately the only really viable long-term 'user content' site model is the Wikipedia one - where it's a nonprofit and the revenue-streams provided only go towards paying staff to do the shit which volunteers generally can't/won't do and to support backoffice functions like servers, insurance etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:49, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The aftermath of the invasion of Mexico.

So after being reminded that Trump really, really, REALLY wants to invade Mexico I got to thinking a little about all the other major modern US interventions and how much suffering they directly caused, and how much suffering they indirectly caused via blowback. Somalia in my opinion is the most obvious and possibly most relevant example here. We overthrew the Islamist government, only for their youth wing to continue the fight and become more and more extreme and more connected with Al-Qaeda as we bombed Somalia more and more and more. But that is not why I bought that up, you see in 2017 US special forces and their Somali allies killed 10 civilians, a few months later a man from the village where the massacre was committed drove a truck filled with bombs into Mogadishu and killed hundreds of people. Now I can't predict the future, but I do believe we can look to the past to help understand what might happen in the future, and the past tells us that the invasion of Mexico will go swimmingly with zero American deaths and blowback, and infact we should invade Canada as well. A somebody. (talk) 01:13, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Clearly this would be a dreadful idea. But how likely is it?

Trump is quite a blowhard. These are some of the things he promised he would do last time: build a wall paid for by Mexico; jail Hillary Clinton; institute torture as policy; leave NATO; expel all illegal immigrants; reduce the national debt - and so on. Of course there was stuff he did do as well - but the fact that Trump says he's going to do a thing certainly does not mean it's actually going to happen.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

True, but he now has incentive to stay in power for the rest of his life (lingering court cases), get-out-of-jail-free card from the Supremes. He would have to be pardoned by the New York State governor to dodge the existing felony conviction (unlikely). Also a pardon requires him to admit guilt, something he's never done. Bongolian (talk) 08:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Trump won't really 'invade', because he's a bully by nature and Mexico is strong enough to mount the porcupine strategy; ie to be so spiky that the eater ends up with a a painful face even if America could ultimately win an conventional war. Bullies hate actual real fights with enemies which can really fight back, which is why the interventions are gifts to opponents who realistically can't fight back [Haiti, Iraq] but not on ones which really could [Brazil, North Korea]. On Bob M's point, I am reminded of the quip that it's wise to generally take the Orange One seriously but not literally; so we would read every single thing he says as 'I wanna do and if nobody stops me I shall'.

Yes, Trump will spend his next four years basically making himself legally immune post-Presidency - following my above maxim, he will try a '28 run, but be so shot down he'll abandon it [that is assuming he is still alive and competent, which is something for what will be by then 82 years] so he'll do his best to court-pack, neuter and rig '28 so Vance/Junior gets in and issues another ton of pardons [Trump will self-pardon the day he's in office, but just to make sure].

One aspect I do wonder is whether he has seriously considered that a) if he does do most of the shit he desires there might be some folks who simply do not care that he's legally invulnerable and decide to attempt extra-legal methods of physical removal [and not just a few amateur lone wolves either] and/or b) he goes too far and ends up like the President did in the Civil War film. I'm reminded here of the bit out of Pratchett's Night Watch in which it's monologued that Lord Winder [the ruler] had simply gone on too long, had pissed off too many people, had not paid heed to the warning signs and had declined to quietly walking away after adequate self-enrichment.

Who are the people in the Orange One's circle now who will tell him that he's mortal? That he needs to avoid becoming despised and hated? That riches do not profit in the day of wrath? That one can abuse the law so far that there comes a day where folks no longer accept that as a defence? That you can prod the most docile of creatures into attacking if roused enough? In short; where are his 'honest advisors' [even the likes of Pence, Bolton etc count here]? Because I don't see any and that is what is scaring me. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:04, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I honestly have not seen much evidence that either MAGA or all of the other similar movements around the world that kind of look like ruscism is very into territory conquering... Vladimir Putin's version being the big exception. It's actually a key difference between "fascism 1930s style" and the modern day right wing populism personified by Trump and Viktor Orban and Bolsonaro and whatnot... whereas much of the 1930s style fascism *was* more revolutionary and into conquering and empire building, much of the current movements are more reactionary and inward-looking... lots of moaning about the good old days, Other, appeal to tradition... but not a whole lot of appeal for empire-building. In fact, it is perhaps the opposite: elements of Trumpism seems perfectly willing to abandon NATO and all of the other outward elements of United States global power in the name of retreating inward. Such is why, instead of wanting to conquer Mexico, Trump has more been about tariffs and fighting immigration -- all signs of a turtle retreating in its shell instead of a warrior wielding its sword.

Now, ruscism is all about authoritarian capitalism and kleptocracy too, and such may or may not still desire the neoliberalism gun-ho global economic elements. Personally, I actually see a conflict between the more libertarian elements in the Trump 2.0 administration that still adore globalization and merely just hate those pesky other regulations, and the more protectionist elements that are more gung-ho on the tariff side (complicated by loose cannons like Elon Musk who I have no idea what the fuck he's about these days). Wall Street seems to think that the former side will win out the day, from what I see. We'll see... I'm not so confident personally. As KP points out, there is much less "stopgaps" in the Trump 2.0 administration, and thus a much greater chance that his desired tariffs actually do far more economic damage than Trump 1.0 2018. BobJohnson (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

That's true that Iraq as a state crumpled up really quickly after invasion, but it's also true that the US was never able to root out the insurgency that popped up almost immediately after Saddam's fall, even with the surge in troop numbers. Carthage (talk) 20:32, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. The main thing about 30s fascism more than anything is 'might makes right'; this applies to within the state or outside of it. That your 'opponent' is either weaker than you [demand placating] or stronger than you [must be placated] - the concept of 'equality','fairness' or 'legality' is alien to it. Therefore, if the weaker party denies the requests, it's perfectly fine to take it at a point of a sword. If you carry it off, you clearly deserved it. But they can be open into 'cutting deals' aka realpolitik - part of the more realistic MAGA arguments against the Ukraine war was to say it was a failure of American politics because it didn't directly sit down with Russia and firmly draw Yalta-style 'spheres of influence' in Europe [of which I suspect all the former USSR would have been '90% Russia', W. Europe '90% US' and 'Eastern Europe' 50/50].

Therefore, Trumpian posturing over Mexico is that of a 'sphere leader' telling their subject that their current policies aren't good enough. It's up to Mexico to either deliver the desired actions or face... consequences. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:07, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh, golly gee, almost sounds like imperialism to me. Carthage (talk) 20:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Has imperialism ever ended? KarmaPolice (talk) 20:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Definitely not, but some people would have us believe differently. It's funny how people use all these euphemisms to describe the same thing: "spheres of influence," "great game," etc. Carthage (talk) 21:01, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

It's not really an euphemism when it describes an aspect of a situation which has been the 'normal state of affairs' since perhaps 1850. Just because a load of people [mainly Americans] live in a delusional world where 'imperialism doesn't exist anymore' is irrelevant in this situation. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:45, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Proper use of funspace

Why are our articles about subnational units in fun space? Those seem about as missional as our articles on proper countries to me. Carthage (talk) 16:57, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

e.g.? Scream!! (talk) 18:37, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

every single us state and some canadian provinces. to be fair, a lot of them are more light-hearted in tone than our usual articles. they contain a lot of jokes, and some of them need a little quality clean-up (updating, etc.) before they can be moved to mainspace. The G (talk) 23:32, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

One long, long, long term goal of mine is to create short-ish mainspace articles for US states. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:55, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

They were all originally in mainspace. Due to the aforementioned lighthearted nature as well as being not very thorough, itt was decided (voted?) to move them all to funspace. Bongolian (talk) 06:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure funspace is really used for 'fun'. It's more a generic dumping ground for stuff which isn't a) mainspace b) draft or c) an essay. Perhaps a better definition is 'fluffspace'; as in stuff which due to either lack of citations, RW mission relevance, seriousness and/or notability but has been decided to retain... well, decided back then.

If I was God-King I think I'd memory-hole about 95% of Funspace, leaving a few remainders such as BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!! which I think would have been a mainspace if only it got enough refs. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:50, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Russia fires Ballistic Missile

My original question was going to be why Russia fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile at a country right next door, but now it seems that it was a medium-range missile presumably fired from central Russia. My next question was if this was the first time a ballistic missile has ever been used in combat, but plenty of missiles have been fired during this nearly three year long war. So my final question is if ballistic missiles have ever been used in combat before the current Ukraine war. Vital Forces (talk) 03:30, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

No, the first ballistic missile used in combat was the German V-2 in 1944. KarmaPolice (talk) 05:16, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

And there have been several uses of ballistic missiles since WWII as well, with the Scud missiles originally developed by the USSR being the most frequently used: By Egypt against Israel in the Yom Kippur War, by Iraq against first Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, then against various other countries during the Gulf War, the Afghans used them against the mujahideen and Pakistan in 1988 and during their civil war in the 1990s, and Scuds have later been used in Libya, Syria, Chechnya, Yemen and Nagorno-Karabakh as well. Iran has also used its own missiles to strike various opponents including via its proxies.

So, while ballistic missile attacks haven’t been prevalent since their inception in WWII, they have never been entirely absent, either. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:19, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

"Ballistic" literally means "unpowered". Mortars, rockets after their boost stage and even bullets are "ballistic" by this definition. However, when intercontinental nuclear missiles were developed they were made to enter low orbit and then drop "ballistically" onto their targets. Hence "Intercontinental Ballistic Missile". But then "Ballistic Missile" and "Nuclear Missile" started to become combined in the public consciousness. At this moment, until we know a little more about the weapon, telling us that is was "ballistic", does not tell us a lot.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:30, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

'But then "Ballistic Missile" and "Nuclear Missile" started to become combined in the public consciousness'.

I think the above sums up the reasoning hehind this. He is hoping that this news will sufficiently scare Western opinion into ditching Ukraine - his repeated dick-waving has garnered nil to even minus result [I think British opinion has hardened against Putin for repeatedly threatening to incinerate us]. He fights this war like a mafiya boss would - and because we didn't heed his 'advice' even after being shown the blade, he's decided to give Ukraine's arm a little slash.

But this also tells us that despite the above, Putin is attempting somewhat to avoid direct war with NATO. There are things which he could do which would be a genuine esculation - for example, a huge spate of cyber attacks, cutting internet cables, paying Western crime groups to kill particular 'anti-Russian' individuals etc - but he has not done this. Hell, did you know that Europe is still getting some gas from Russia? Cut that off entirely; let the Euros freeze during this winter. How much of this is his own decision and how much of it was Xi perhaps literally giving him a list of 'shit you must not pull without 'consulting' us first' we perhaps will never know.

Oh, and useless factoid of the day: the V-1 was the world's first cruise missile, which is the more usual tech for missiles right now. Some of these can be nuclear-armed, such as the American Tomahawk. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:21, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Technically anything which moves through the air by itself is a "missile". A thrown rock in the literal sense would be a "missile" - and a ballistic one at that.

Obviously, in military terms, these words have more specialized meanings, where a "missile" is a big complicated thing which explodes at the end of its trajectory. Such missiles can be wholly powered during flight like a cruise missile, they can be wholly unpowered (ballistic) like a glide bomb or they can have a boost stage followed by a terminal ballistic stage like an ICBM. And you could put a nuclear weapon on any of them if they were fitted out for it.

The advantage of a ballistic missile dropping vertically from low atmosphere is that it is bloody hard to shoot down. Partly because of its trajectory and partly because it has no (or very little) heat signature.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:02, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I’m not sure I follow the logic of why would Putin need to rely on Western crime groups for assassination, or why such crime groups would risk being designated as terror groups (as they almost certainly would, if they started to act like Moscow hit squads).

There have, apparently, already been credible and serious Russian threats against key people, such as the apparent plans to assassinate the CEO of Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger. Then there are the various “mysterious fires and explosions” at certain arms and munitions producers and storage facilities, both leading up to and during the current war. It’s also worth remembering that Putin has repeatedly (and often successfully) had dissidents and opponents assassinated in Europe for years, and well before the start of the war, too.

Similarly, there have already been cyberattacks on/in various European countries and businesses that almost certainly originated in Russia, although Putin has been able to maintain some level of plausible deniability, just as with the apparent sabotage.

As for the gas, my guess is that reason Europe still gets some from Russia is that Putin badly needs the hard currency and has already found out that Europe is not actually going to freeze if he cuts it off entirely, though it would have to pay more for its energy needs.

I completely agree that Putin wants to avoid a direct war with NATO and this view is reciprocated by NATO for the simple reason that it would run a very high risk of “going nuclear”. If such a Russo-NATO war was entirely conventional Russia would almost certainly just outright lose it, and since this would not be acceptable to Putin, the nuclear option would have to be taken, in which case everyone would almost certainly lose, again including Putin.

It is indeed both possible and likely that the Russian use of a ballistic (rather than cruise) missile is yet more sabre rattling at NATO to keep the alliance from scaling up its support from Ukraine. It’s probably especially intended to keep the lame duck Biden in check and to scare off the European parts of the alliance from trying to somewhat compensate from the expected Trump cuts to the aid to Ukraine.

Putin has a lot to gain by keeping the current, if fairly limited, Russian momentum going into 2025, while pushing the narrative that Ukraine’s struggles are hopeless, in order to get Trump to give him as good a settlement as possible, if this is indeed where things are heading. ScepticWombat (talk) 16:51, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Which is why I said 'huge spate' of cyber attacks etc. Like the explosions, they're currently fairly intermittent. But why use criminal gangs? Plausible deniability. It's old KGB 'craft'; if you're going to do something really iffy, you if possible pay a third party to do it for you in a manner which isn't traceable back to you - the Iranians have also been doing this for years. There is also some grounds to believe that FSB 'capabilities' in Western nations physically is relatively limited - they very well might be hoarding said capabilities for the point they 'really need them'. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

There is precedent for intelligence agencies hiring organized crime groups to serve as their proxies. Carthage (talk) 19:55, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's both ways: Putin does not want to go to war with NATO, because the likelihood of it going nuclear thus everyone losing is very high, moreso knowing the Russian army even before this shitshow was and is much smaller than the Red Army and in that area of Europe it has just Belarus instead of the Warsaw pact, and Xi allowed to show that new toy knowing it mounted a non-nuclear warhead as a warning because in the case of nuclear war everyone loses, China included. To Moscow's credit, they at least supposedly warned US of the launch of the missile half an hour before.

I remember how shortly after Putin's "special military operation" began Poland offered to give Ukraine some old Mig-29s no longer in use and Moscow threatened with "consequences", so no Migs in that moment, and how as time went by how many red lines were crossed by NATO to give equipment to Ukraine, receiving just threats from Russia and at worst that announcement about moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus after Zelensky got depleted uranium shells for the Abrams tanks. This was going to happen after the warnings about letting Kyiv use long-range missiles against targets in Russia, and I'm afraid we'll see more of this at least before Biden leaves. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:25, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I must admit I still don’t see why criminals would risk the kind of public exposure and harsh prosecutions and crackdowns that would follow if they started acting as Moscow hit squads.

That said, there is a nexus of criminal groups originating from or tied to Russia (incl. Chechnya) and they might be available to some extent, as they have figured in other assassinations of Russian expats. But that might be more due to the presence of Russian intelligence networks in (or outright overlaps in personnel with) this part of the criminal underworld, rather than a portent of a larger pattern.

Even criminal groups with Russian ties would have to weigh their loyalty to and rewards from Moscow against their future abilities to operate in Europe, which would almost certainly be sharply curtailed if they start conducting assassinations on Moscow’s behalf. Especially considering the heightened tensions and thus intelligence surveillance, I don't see many criminal groups considering becoming Moscow's hired killers worth the risk.

That’s why I think it’s probably more likely that any assassinations will follow the patterns of those we’ve already seen: The perpetrators are probably not openly tied to Moscow (i.e. enough distance to provide plausible deniability), but also evince enough of a “Russian odour” to create a clear impression that the murder was ultimately carried out on Moscow’s behalf, thus providing a clear warning to other dissidents and critics. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:30, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

And some groups would turn down the 'hiring' offer; though I suspect more out of suspicion it's an agent provocateur than anything else. But you're forgetting a critical point; if you're a leader in an organised grime group which runs brothels with sex slaves, traffics heroin, extorts businesses and corrupts authorities you've kind of crossed the point where 'harsh prosecutions and crackdowns' really have an effect in dissuading you some time ago. There is also the little fact that law enforcement generally need actual evidence to start making arrests and they've learned from experience that not only can they afford very good lawyers but usually know exactly 'how the enemy thinks' and thus, can stay one step ahead. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:00, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with the “don’t care about crackdowns” interpretation, simply because not all of these examples are treated with equal zeal by law enforcement, the intelligence services or politicians. See how authorities tend to (over)react the moment crime is seen as having crossed over into what is perceived as a threat to national security (as Russian sponsored hits definitely would be interpreted).

Similarly, I would expect that several of the potential caveats to normal procedural and evidential standards that can be invoked in the name of national security would indeed be used immediately, and it’s even possible that emergency legislation and rules would be introduced that could go even further.

In that situation, I can’t really see that there would be a public outcry or a host of human rights lawyers lining to defend people who already have a long and serious rap sheet and have now sponsored/carried out domestic assassinations on behalf of a hostile, foreign power. ScepticWombat (talk) 03:42, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Sad to say, there's nations which have a sliding scale of 'gives a fuck'. Here in the UK, chances are while they'd get very worked-up if say, an MP or a very prominent exile got clearly whacked, there is a chance our special branch folks don't even get the notification if a more minor target got 'stabbed in a mugging gone wrong' or 'pushed out in front of a bus'. What's more, it's possible for the FSB to provide the means of the hit - for example, epi-pens of poison similar to the Markov hit. And like in The Godfather, you can simply organise it that the hitman goes to ground straight after; that by the time the police work out it was a hit, start the electronic chase the person has already flew out of Heathrow to Tirane and none of the Albanian authorities have a clue where.

Anyway, there's a rash of dodgy actions right now which have this MO all over it. I mean, like the drones which 'coincidently' have repeatedly flown over RAF airbases in the last week or two. This is all part of the 'hybrid warfare' model and yes, assassinations by third parties will be a part of this and we'd better fucking wake up and start preparing for it. KarmaPolice (talk) 04:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Thinkpiece: https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-russia-hybrid-war-vladimir-putin-germany-cyberattacks-election-interference/ KarmaPolice (talk) 04:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, the drone thing I’d totally believe. It both has the plausible deniability and the sort of “balanced terror” effect that means it’s effective and disruptive without quite escalating to the seriousness of, say, assassinations in the broader public consciousness.

These kinds of “hybrid/harassment warfare” can be very disruptive and difficult and expensive to deal with for an open economy and as such I would not be surprised to hear that Russia is experimenting with such means to target Ukraine’s European allies in particular. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:24, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Note that in the second link a decent % of people were 'disposable agents' - some not even knowing that their ultimate hirer was the Russian state. In fact, for a lot of these we cannot prove they were hired by the Russian state even after the relevant police investigations because it turns out ultimately they were say hired by a someone via a load of VPNs etc with no visuals and paid in cryptocurrency which had been kept in a digital slush fund kept deliberately away from anything which smells 'Russian'. If said VPN gives the details of the target, the hitperson might not even personally Google them in worries that it could create a digital trail which might be used against them later. With a lack of forensic evidence and/or obvious suspects, the vast majority of investigations would run legally into the sand. If they succeed, enemy taken out. If they fail, well they're disposable and can't be directly traced back to us. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Response from Government of BC (Canada) Regarding Traditional Chinese Medicine being offered at a Public University

So a while back I read about Kwantlen Polytechnic University, a public institution, in British Columbia offering the country's first degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Greatly dismayed, I wrote an email to the BC government's minister of health and post-secondary education detailing as such... got a reply back which I'm posting here for general discussion.

My initial email:

Good day,

I am writing to express my great dismay at discovering that Kwantlen Polytechnic University will be offering a traditional Chinese medicine diploma program. Are you aware that doing so legitimizes pseudoscience?

Like Feng Shui or Reiki, much of traditional Chinese medicine is based on the idea of "Qi" (or "Chi"), a "vital energy flowing through the world and all living things"; Qi is supposedly channelled through a system of "meridians" in the body, with illnesses and maladies believed to be due to the blocked or unbalanced flow of Qi. Procedures such as acupuncture attempt to correct the flow of Qi in a body through the manipulation of meridians, though exactly how many meridians there are in the body can vary among self-proclaimed experts in the field. Putting it bluntly, there is no scientific evidence for a fundamental force like Qi.

I am appalled that a publicly-funded institution would promote traditional Chinese medicine as a bona fide field of study for students interested in medical science; the decision to do so is on par with Georgian College's former plans to offer homeopathy as a program in Ontario. I strongly urge the reconsideration of such a degree being offered.

"… But that didn't matter to me, eventually went to Nanjing to attend school K. In this school, I knew natural sciences, math, geography, history, art, and physical health for the first time. Biology was not included, but we saw books like On the Whole Body and On Chemical Hygiene. I remembered arguments and prescriptions of the old doctors, compared them with that of today's, and slowly realized traditional Chinese medicine is deceit, willful or not, but also felt great pity for the patients and their families scammed. From translated history I also knew Japanese Reformation has much roots in Western medicine. ..." - Lu Xun, in the preface of Nahan (1922)

The response received:

Dear Impiricism:

I am writing in response to your email sent to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, regarding Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Traditional Chinese Medicine program. As post-secondary education is within the responsibilities of the Honourable Anne Kang, Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, your correspondence has been forwarded to me. I am responding on behalf of the Honourable Josie Osborne, Minister of Health, and Minister Kang. I apologize for the delayed response.

Traditional Chinese Medicine has been a regulated health profession in British Columbia under the Health Professions Act since December 4, 2000. Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, along with Registered Massage Therapy, Chiropractic, and Naturopathic Medicine are regulated by the College of Complementary Health Professionals of British Columbia. The College of Complementary Health Professionals of British Columbia’s legal obligation is to protect the public through the regulation of its registrants and is responsible for ensuring that regulated health professionals provide health services in a qualified, safe, and ethical manner.

As you note, Kwantlen Polytechnic University currently offers a Traditional Chinese Medicine program through its two-year acupuncture diploma. This program has been offered since 2016. On July 26, 2024, Kwantlen Polytechnic University announced that it would begin offering the first degree-level program in Traditional Chinese Medicine in Canada, beginning in September 2025.

Prior to receiving approval, the new degree program underwent reviews through the Degree Quality Assessment Board, the University Senate at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and the College of Complementary Health Professionals of British Columbia.

Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners and Acupuncturists are identified as a high-opportunity occupation in the 2023-33 Labour Market Outlook with an estimated 570 job openings in the next 10 years. By training more Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture practitioners Kwantlen Polytechnic University is being responsive to meeting this labour-market demand and provide more healthcare choices for people in BC.

Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely,

Executive Director Post-Secondary Programs Branch

Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills

My initial email could have been better written upon reflection, but nonetheless I find the response disheartening. The BC government is basically saying "we've verified that the pseudoscience is mostly harmless, and besides that it gives much financial opportunity for both the province and program graduates themselves". Blegh. Impiricism (talk) 19:29, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

As a fellow BC Resident, I would maybe want to emphasize that "complementary health" is another term for alternative medicine, and that there is a boatload of bioethical issues in providing alternative medicine as "healthcare" when it is completely devoid of the evidential standards regulated and required by medical care that is based within biomedical science. There are also substantial risks and duties to inform patients when providing care that has not been demonstrated under controlled trials to demonstrate any kind of clinically significant effect, especially when there is significant risk of worsening existing medical conditions, toxic drug interactions, infection, cerebral hemotoma, etc. Meeting the labour demand for a unethical pseudomedical industry that is largely based on a false and distored history of traditional healing practices isn't justified because a bunch of special interest groups that benefit from the profits generated by such an industry have decreed that the degree is of a "high standard". - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

When even laser hair removal has more evidence of beneficial health outcomes (for trans people at least [1]), you know the school really messed up. LongStylus (talk) 04:56, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

They don't want to hurt Chinese feelings and national pride, such as of that idiot who argued with you in the Talk page of TCM article and believed that the Chinese are superior to "evil Westerners". 🇷🇸 Serbian Arbiter (What would you have your arbiter do?) 07:30, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

They don't want to turn away Chinese wallets do we? The 'Chinese student market' is like one huge buffet table which advanced nations have noticed and rushed into, and BC wants a slice of that action. Offering a TCM course with an Anglosphere branding... that's what we call proper value added and with not many competitors offering it [the only UK one I could find with this cachet was Westminster]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:20, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

As someone who lives in this actual part of the world, the presence of acupuncturist shops and reflexology centres are already unavoidable in the commercial sectors of the Greater Vancouver Area (especially Burnaby and East Vancouver). But as a private service I am fine with it being provided given that the service is provided under the standards of disclosure that medical professionals are already beholden to by law. Patients are not providing informed consent if they are uninformed about the risk-benefit profile of such services, which would violate their bodily autonomy.

It should also be said that we already have a very high asian population in this part of Canada, and with the federal government cracking down on immigration I don’t suspect it is likely that a growing Chinese demographic is going to increase the demand of such services. I am not even sure that the market demand is primarily coming from Asian populations. The majority of the people I know who speak favourably of such practices like Acupuncture have been white folks. But I wouldn’t doubt the older generation of Chinese immigrants being predisposed towards TCM, you explain that by the propaganda produced favourably for it during the cultural revolution, and the expansion of TCM to “healthcare” to inflate the number of jobs available in that industry within China itself.

But in my experience it seems more an older generation thing if ever see people of Chinese descent engaging in TCM at all, but I think primarily the market demand is a lot more general than that. I would single out Austrian migrants for creating the demand for homeopathy, though I recognize that isn’t completely analogous. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 08:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. The appeal is from students from China coming in on their own coin, dumping a load of Yuan into the Uni's coffers and getting that degree which as it's a Western sheepskin appeals to the snobs and those with a cultural cringe 'back home', which they hope will give them the edge in their currently rather saggy labour market. The fact the region already has a well-established Chinese community means their often very insular, clannish mentality [before anyone calls me racist on this, this is a well-documented thing] can be preserved even better. Overseas Chinese is a different question; if I was one who wanted to study TCM and could afford overseas study, I think I would look to Taiwan first [which is clearly not an option for mainlanders]. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:01, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

speaking of yuan on an entirely unrelated topic, i found a 1 yuan note on the southbank the other week. its worth a princely sum of 10 english pence, so thats a result. its interesting to see what/who foreigns put on their money. it shouldnt be a surprise or unexpected to see mao on there, and it wasnt, but still thought to myself 'oh that guy'. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice I am just uncertain of the relevancy to the motivation for KPU if the federal government is cracking down on lowering the number of international students in the country. It has gotten to the point that it has resulted in massive drops in departmental funding at my Uni, because the amount of tuition from international students has greatly dropped due to these increasingly stricter caps. If the appeal for KPU is the potential revenue from Chinese Immigrants, then I couldn’t think of a worse time to implement a program like this. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

All is revealed in the emails - BC Govt. Won't be the first or last time two tiers of govt were working at cross-purposes. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I made a new video

https://youtu.be/6Ru2_I7PyQ0?si=yp62ySflOcvdqV6U

I hope you all like it. --Trans Fem Agenda 17:04, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I really like your intro and the first half of your disclaimer. Way cool that the 'shelter in place'is a realistic first solution, but it has times and locations, I love it. I would put that suspenseful ambient music lower than what you've done. You deserve it to be quiet background, two locations, a time stamp, lady, this is actually insanely cool. Torrent (talk) 04:48, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

My channel has experienced stagnation in the past year. I appreciate your input. --Trans Fem Agenda 13:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Watch Hereditary. It has that ambient stress music throughout, if you can use it subtly it can punch up the other things you're nailing.Torrent (talk) 07:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Found this...

'Independent Wiki Federation'

Thoughts? KarmaPolice (talk) 19:00, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Their FAQ page says that political wikis aren't eligible to join. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 19:17, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

a) I was thinking more in general terms and b) I like how being anti-lies and BS is now a 'political position'. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:20, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Self-congratulatory nonsense. RationalWiki (or rather the behavior of its resident editors) would have to change significantly before one could call it objective or receptive to argumentation. One with a dissenting opinion can hardly get a word in without being labeled a troll or some such unanswerable slur. Accumulator (talk) 19:45, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

We are receptive to argument and debate. What we're not 'receptive' to is BS arguments where the foundation comprises of 'because I said so', other users digging out evidence to prove you incorrect only you to 'yeah, right' handwaving away. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

A rather selective recollection. It doesn't seem to include all of the quite reasonable points I'd made in various discussions or the thousand-and-one times I'd been called a troll, hatted and threatened with sanction for advancing those points, before (and after) I uttered those words of terrible incredulity and exasperation - 'yeah, right'. I'll concede that particular point (whatever it was), remove the hats and we can resume the discussion(s), if you like. Accumulator (talk) 15:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I take it that Accumulator has never been around any fandom communities, where of course everything is kumbaya all the time, and there are never any hardcore disagreements, shouting matches, turf wars, and all the other fun dramas of humanity. *cough* *insert multi-page flame wars on "Kirk or Picard?" or "my Doctor is better than yours" or some Pepe-iconed troll yelling about how sci-fi is just too woke.* ^{— Unsigned, by: BobJohnson / talk / contribs}

I don't see what that has to do with anything. My point was not about IWF. Accumulator (talk) 15:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course not, my little troll friend, even though the IWF is the point of this thread. If you want to not be called a troll, don't go off topic on a conversation just to stir up shit. Trolls do that sort of thing, eh? BobJohnson (talk) 15:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Surely you understand my position and the point I'm making. If RW's users rely on ad hominem attacks then this sort of self-aggrandizement is quite unbecoming. It's not very dialectical to persistently name-call or characterize. It appears that you've already settled the main question of the IWF, about which I have no particular interest. I suppose I'd have to agree that RW is a "political" wiki. Accumulator (talk) 15:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't 'name-calling' or 'characterising' you a couple of months back, I was providing 'fair comment' regarding the policies you were advocating in a pithy statement which made you sad because I described you as an uncaring cunt. Which I totally stand by, BTW - and yes, I did re-read the whole thing so no, it is not 'selective recollection'. KarmaPolice (talk) 03:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

You don't fool me with this act for a moment. I've been more civil the whole way along than many of you have. Save your crocodile tears. Accumulator (talk) 03:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I shouldn't feed the troll, but "I'm the super duper civil one, now here's an ad hominem in the next sentence" is a pretty funny speech pattern. Carry on now. BobJohnson (talk) 03:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Amazing that you miss them when they come from everyone else - "troll", "uncaring cunt", etc. Accumulator (talk) 04:06, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Tone argument and Pathos gambit in action, alongside balance fallacy. KarmaPolice (talk) 04:25, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Shall we return to the original discussion(s) then? That is, those in which I was called a troll, hatted, and summoned to your kangaroo court on an unfalsifiable charge? Accumulator (talk) 04:36, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Someone's salty. Carthage (talk) 05:15, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

But yes, IWF is focused on "lifestyle, entertainment, and gaming" wikis. That is not RW, at all. BobJohnson (talk) 14:21, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

In a sense, I would say it always has been. And this has always been a political wiki. Anti-authoritarianism is a political position. Carthage (talk) 20:01, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, in a sense, everything is political.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 20:23, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

"Reality has a well-known Liberal bias." Impiricism (talk) 23:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we should make an alliance with 1d6chan, too. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 08:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the details of Luigi's idea were that great, but the general principle that perhaps we should try to at least reach out a little to other groups where our goals/missions align somewhat isn't a stupid one. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:11, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

But isn't that just being a person? Torrent (talk) 05:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

? KarmaPolice (talk) 09:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. Tell your friends about RationalWiki. I have. Spud (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I do - I bitched about the Oak Island Money Pit page because someone asked me about it, it was RW's time to shine and it fucked up by being a shit article. But I was more thinking of us 'as RW' doing stuff to try to get more new blood in. KarmaPolice (talk) 03:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I did not read above this apology, but I am going to chime in anyway. Being a thug means never having to say you're sorry, which is a strange thing that came to mind. I looked it up, it's from the only Weeds episode I ever saw, woof what a memory castle, but if Trick Daddy taught me anything, it's that if I was stricken with locked in syndrome, I'd blink out 'this is the life for me'. You did nothing wrong. Apology ignored https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OA8plLojVp8&pp=ygUWdHJpY2sgZGFkZHkgaSdtIGEgdGh1Zw%3D%3D . Torrent (talk) 07:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

A new Euromaiden?

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/12/01/europe/georgia-protests-spread-intl-latam

The current protests in Georgia reminds me of the Euromaiden revolution in Ukraine their president didn't sign the EU agreement, moved closer to Russia and experienced democratic backsliding. Will History repeat itself. --Trans Fem Agenda 13:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

No, but it's rhyming. The Caucasus unit fighting for Ukraine has issued a statement that they will return to Georgia if the get a signal from the outgoing president. The timing rebel retaking of Aleppo was apparently due to 1) viewing Russia as weakened by fighting in Ukraine and 2) Hezbollah military being greatly diminished by Israel. Ukraine is reporting mass desertions by Russian troops a Russian military officer reported that highly-trained soldiers were instead being sent into the meat-grinder (front line assaults) to cover up false claims by Russian officers of territorial gains. Overall, it's a very chaotic situation. Bongolian (talk) 20:51, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I personally think that revolution is coming. It is the same recipe as the Euromaiden revolution. By the way, the Georgia Dream Party is already blaming the United States for the protests against the rigged election; apparently everything is the fault of the United States (easier to blame someone else for problems caused by a government). --Trans Fem Agenda 22:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The Paradox Institute

Made this recent discovery of a think-tank masquerading as a science communication organization, headed by a guy named Zachary Elliot. The dude seemingly spends a lot of time shitter/“x” being a reply guy to any and all attempts to use biological science as a way of being gender affirming. Often through the use of supplying statistics and operational definitions used in a particular research context within biology and applying it to contexts the information was never intended to conclude anything about; i.e. using statistical summaries of the difference in grip-strength of the average male compared to the average female as implicative of the grip-strength of transgender women. I don’t know how it would be a justified inference to assume that even being AMAB, transgender women competing in sports required to undergo HRT would be representative of the “average male”. There is also just a lot of stuff that is pretty par for the course TERF talking points regarding folks with DSD’s (they don’t count apparently because they are “disordered”), insistence on the binary sex model (though unknowingly contradicting it repeatedly), and denial to any research identifying biological correlates to gender identity. Maybe missional enough to keep tabs on, and I suspect the “Paradox Institute” will become a growing resource for gender-affirming care denialists in the coming years. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:57, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I actually got recommended a video from that channel while watching a video about how sex isn't binary either; It seems like PragerU for TERFs to me. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 22:33, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

This guy's not even at a "think-tank" level - he's (as of 2021, probably graduated by now?) an architecture university student of an Oklahoma college. In some ways, this is similar to the engineers and woo topic; some engineers are unfortunately prone to ultracrepidarianism and may spout bullshit on things they know nothing about. Architects aren't engineers, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is something similar in that field as well.

The other thing this demonstrates about social media is how it gives a much more level playing field to both bullshit and actual legitimate research than was the case in past media forms. Not that cranks and charlatans didn't exist before, but there were more "barriers" to publish. These days, the barriers are gone. This isn't all bad by any means as a whole, but one of the consequences is that legitimate research on more "difficult" technical topics tends to get buried on social media under a sea of easy-to-produce PIDOOMA bullshit videos, especially on "controversial" topics. You are pretty safe on YouTube with some topics (things like DIY repair hints or dives to find obscure music for instance), but I wouldn't touch YouTube for any academic subject with a 100 foot pole. Let alone Twitter, which is a complete dumpster fire by now of little if any worth thanks to the Elon Musk wrecking ball. BobJohnson (talk) 22:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I called it a “think-tank” for lack of a better name. Calling it an educational organization seems a bit far-fetched. The website for the Paradox Institute features a pretty small team, but the motivations seem less desiring to communicate sex education and the science of sexual reproduction, insomuch it serves an ideological function as Cirrus aptly puts it “PragerU for TERFs”. There is a cognitive psychologist and a PhD candidate in neuroscience working for the “institute”. As I said, it’s a small team, but it’s curious that no endocrinologist or developmental biologists are part of the team. What annoys me the most about this kind of ““science communication”” is that there is no nuance to the conceptual issues related to categorization in science, the kind that both biologists and philosophers of science are privy to (arguably more so the biologists than the philosophers). They just run with the gamete criteria for biological sex without any attention to the exceptions or nuances. Okay, that doesn’t annoy me the most, the exclusionary motivations do, but it irritates the philosopher of science in me all the same. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

What I'd call it is propaganda. I suspect this is an attempt to get into the pundit grifting wingnut welfare circuit ala Dennis Prager or Ben Shapiro ("Facts over feelings" merch? How original.)

They do their best to act all Science-y and link to a lot of papers in their bullshit. I guess they are hoping that the reader never clicks on the links. For example, in one story, they claim that an Endrocine Society claims that "there are exactly two sexes". I clicked on the link. That is not what this paper says. The paper is about considering biological sex when designing research projects (there are differences here and there so this is a legitimate thing to consider). Yes, one sentence does state that there is a classic biological "sex" definition ("The classical biological definition of the 2 sexes is that females have ovaries and make larger female gametes (eggs), whereas males have testes and make smaller male gametes (sperm); the 2 gametes fertilize to form the zygote, which has the potential to become a new individual.") But, shortly afterwards, the paper goes on to say "a simple biological definition of male and female, satisfactory to all people, is elusive." And more - there is absolutely far more additional nuance on sex and gender in the Endrocine paper. It does not support the binary absolutism being pushed by this silly "Paradox Institute" college kid.

I've seen this pattern of "research paper abuse" in a lot of woo webshites and I suspect this site is yet another one that plays the same game. BobJohnson (talk) 00:40, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, that's a little more nuanced than the bwave warrior KenBot's tendency to link to anything which has a remotely supportive title, but not by much. The reasoning is this;

a) Most folks won't click the link.

b) Most folks who click the link won't bother to read the paper.

c) Most folks who read the paper won't really understand what they're reading.

d) Most folks who do understand what they're reading won't bother to come back to us to bitch.

e) Most folks who do come and bitch can be fobbed off with variants of 'you didn't understand' and other shite.

f) Those three people who can't be given the gaslight fob-off can simply be blocked.

KarmaPolice (talk) 01:24, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

can't be fobbed to do much of anything personally, to be honest, but calling Twitter 'Shitter' I can't believe I've never seen that before. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qGIgIXaVs0A&pp=ygUnYm9iIGFuZCB0b20gbXIgb2J2aW91cyBnYXJiYWdlIGRpc3Bvc2Fs I am as stunned by this as the time I heard somebody say Mitch McConnell can munch my cornhole. It is just there, why am I so blown away every time? Torrent (talk) 05:20, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

big reminder, this is the saloon, you can suggest an edit on any page in its talk, or you can create a page. Best advice, if you know or understand something, go for it. Torrent (talk) 06:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

@BobJohnson Thank you for sharing that catch, I appreciate it. Ironic how in the effort to appear scientific for propgandistic purposes one has to put a specific effort in maintaing that one adequately misrepresents the science they cite. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 08:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Such is the way of the transphobe. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

About last month...

Around this time last month there was discussion about betting sites being more accurate than pollsters and political pundits. That led to a ban on new and unregistered users using the saloon bar. Anyways, it seems betting sites were right after all because while pundits & pollsters were saying there was a more than chance Kamala would pick up at least one swing state, each polling site I could find (polymarket, predictit to name a couple) had a Trump swing state sweep as the most likely outcome (as of the week before election day.) Needless to say, betting apps were more correct in their predictions this year, and the pollsters with million-dollar budgets were somehow even more off with their polls vs election results than they were in 2016 and 2020. Another thing I want to mention, but I find it so sad that Allan Lichtman has essentially thrown his credibility out the window & decided to be a partisan hack this year, despite the fact that it was obvious to everyone that the keys were favoring Trump. Dems had a terrible economy outlook both short term and long term (Keys 5 and 6) at least according to working Americans not shareholders, Trump was far more charismatic than Kamala (Keys 12 and 13). While the Afghanistan debacale was correctly considered to be bad for the Dems (Key 10) it should have also been counted as a scandal as well (Key 9.) The whole covering-up-biden's-decline-then-replacing-him-with-Kamala act should have also be considered a scandal, and a contest to the incumbancy (key 2) It's unfortunate, after decades of being correct on predicting elections, including Trump 2016 which nobody else got right neither pollsters nor betting apps, Mr. Lichtman decided to spoil his near-perfect record (if you count the Bush/Gore prediction as a loss) just to provide some hopium to the Dems. You might deride this post as "oh you have hindsight 202(4)" But with the way this economy has been going, nobody can afford food and it happens that Biden is President so he (by extention all democrats) gets the blame, despite not being responsible for the greedflation crisis, and yet dems suffer in the polls because of short-sighted voters. I actually think if Biden still ran instead of Harris, Dems would have done a bit better, pick up one or two swing states but still lost. Looking to the future, I'd be surprised if Trump actually implements his tariffs, he is clearly using his "art of the deal" strategy by bargaining with an unrealistically high starting demands, so that the less extreme, desirable results that he is aiming for would appear tame by comparison. Also Republicans are not stupid, if they did actually implement a 25% tariff on Canada/Mexico and 100% on BRICS, that would brick the economy, and therefore destroy their midterm and 2028 outlook (even if they did compromise the elections as Dems said would happen, such a tariff-induced recession would be ruinous to the GOP and piss of a ton of voters, even moreso than the economic conditions that ruined the dems this year) 2001:67C:2628:647:9:0:0:6C (talk) 04:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I've read a native ad before but this, woof. betting sites take opur money and convert it into fun bucks, disney dollars. They pay out in fun bucks and ask you to jump through hoops in an attempt to not pay out dollars paid in, it's a clever business mode!. If you are going to bet, do it in a brick and mortar casino. Torrent (talk) 08:43, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

BoN, you're assuming trump has forethought. It's been widely reported that he does not. Being consumed by revenge and bigotry, as he is, often has a self-blinding effect to potential unexpected consequences. Case in point: he was warned not to appoint GOP House members to the executive branch, which he has done. The reason is that the GOP lead over Democrats is the second lowest in history proportionally: 220-215. Appointing GOP House members to the executive causes vacancies and special elections that will take months to fill, even in 'safe' districts. It increases the likelihood of chaos and inaction within the House. Bongolian (talk) 08:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

This an ad, it's middling bullshit to the point of stirring something up but not saying anything. Online gambling is exploitive 100% of the time, nobody makes an argument that it's a smart decision. There is no barrier to creating an account or username, this guy sucks on purpose. Torrent (talk) 09:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The real story of the election is not that the Trump voters overwhelmingly came out to support him... it's that so many that elected Biden in 2020 stayed home. I have not seen yet analysis on why this was the case (and it's early, so I would not expect it). Most polling I saw emphasized that this really was a "coin flip" election regardless of any prediction, so from that perspective I don't think the polling was that bad this year.

Donald Trump's margin of victory (by the popular vote) is currently 1.5%. Although it's not 2016 (where he lost the popular vote), that's still not that big, and fits with the "coin flip" nature of 2024. And while the Republicans gained a couple seats in the Senate, they actually lost a couple of seats in the House of Representatives (their former margin was 222-213). With a few House members being plucked for cabinet positions as Bongolian mentions, it's very possible that the House Republican margin will be down to as little as 217-215 to start. This was not a "red wave" election. Just a couple of Republican defections can now stymie any bill in the House. I expect the chaos that engulfed the House in 2023 to continue.

From 2016-2018, Trump and the Republicans simultaneously both overplayed their hand rhetorically... and did nothing *too* notable (except deficit-raising tax cuts for the rich, the usual Other demonizing demagoguery, a failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act... and yes, a damaging tariff-induced trade war). The Republicans were shellacked in the 2018 House election (-42 seats) as well as a lot of local state elections as a result (although the Republicans gained 2 Senate seats). The BoN seems to assume that politicians are smart and actually remember history. Many of them aren't and many of them don't. Just look at the Fox News cabinet that Trump is assembling now. Even Republican Senators revolted on the Matt Gaetz pick, and I would be seriously surprised if Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard makes it at this point. Trump is already overplaying his hand. Why do you expect he will stop? BobJohnson (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

First off, no. I put the autoconfirmed limit on the SB not because of 'betting sites being more accurate', but the fact we were getting trollish 'Trump is going to have a huge landslide!!!' comments with zero actual evidence and I pre-emptively put the limit in because I could see them utterly derailing all conversations.

Not for the first time, BobJ is correct in their analysis, though I shall also add the fact Trump managed to eat into the Libertarian vote too and appeal to some [mainly youngish white males] non-voters. In raw numbers-wise, I wasn't seeing 'Trump gains' more than about 4% [2-3 normal]. And the sorts of people the Orange One is picking for posts have no real 'unifying ideology' behind them, only 'loyalty to Trump'. Factor in the fact they're being dredged from a small 'talent puddle' means Trump has zero honest advisors and few even intelligent advisors either. If America was the size/importance of say, Belgium the next four years would be the ultimate 'reality TV' for the world to watch and laugh at. Alas, America is a wee bit more important than that. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

There is another thing I would like to add to the "don't exaggerate the scale of Trump's win" pile. He improved on his 2020 showing but didn't equal 2020 Biden either. There are more "not MAGAs" then MAGAs, you just have to reach them. I don't know what BobJ and KP-our best election analysts in my opinion-will make of what I just said but this was not the utter vanquishing of the Democrats forever or a Reagan scale win. Of course Trump will govern like he has a massive mandate for all the bizarre fantasies of his supporters because narcissists tend to "fill in the gaps." The latest victory is always total and final, to suggest future defeat is absurd until it happens, then the next victory is total and final.-Flandres (talk) 21:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Trump failed - though only just - to win an absolute majority of the vote [49.9%] so it can be said that he didn't carry 'the majority of Americans' [ironically, the 800k who decided to vote for wormbrain even though they'd dropped out pushed this over the line]. If we look at at the whole 'possible eligible electorate', Trump got 32% of the vote, so two-thirds of Americans did not want Trump [though it must be remembered that a decent % of the 36% of 'did not vote' may have not minded Trump's return]. However, it does need to be noted that with the exception of 2020 [which I think was a freak due to it happening during Covid] 2024 had the highest turnout since 1968. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

About last month...

Around this time last month there was discussion about betting sites being more accurate than pollsters and political pundits. That led to a ban on new and unregistered users using the saloon bar. Anyways, it seems betting sites were right after all because while pundits & pollsters were saying there was a more than chance Kamala would pick up at least one swing state, each polling site I could find (polymarket, predictit to name a couple) had a Trump swing state sweep as the most likely outcome (as of the week before election day.) Needless to say, betting apps were more correct in their predictions this year, and the pollsters with million-dollar budgets were somehow even more off with their polls vs election results than they were in 2016 and 2020. Another thing I want to mention, but I find it so sad that Allan Lichtman has essentially thrown his credibility out the window & decided to be a partisan hack this year, despite the fact that it was obvious to everyone that the keys were favoring Trump. Dems had a terrible economy outlook both short term and long term (Keys 5 and 6) at least according to working Americans not shareholders, Trump was far more charismatic than Kamala (Keys 12 and 13). While the Afghanistan debacale was correctly considered to be bad for the Dems (Key 10) it should have also been counted as a scandal as well (Key 9.) The whole covering-up-biden's-decline-then-replacing-him-with-Kamala act should have also be considered a scandal, and a contest to the incumbancy (key 2) It's unfortunate, after decades of being correct on predicting elections, including Trump 2016 which nobody else got right neither pollsters nor betting apps, Mr. Lichtman decided to spoil his near-perfect record (if you count the Bush/Gore prediction as a loss) just to provide some hopium to the Dems. You might deride this post as "oh you have hindsight 202(4)" But with the way this economy has been going, nobody can afford food and it happens that Biden is President so he (by extention all democrats) gets the blame, despite not being responsible for the greedflation crisis, and yet dems suffer in the polls because of short-sighted voters. I actually think if Biden still ran instead of Harris, Dems would have done a bit better, pick up one or two swing states but still lost. Looking to the future, I'd be surprised if Trump actually implements his tariffs, he is clearly using his "art of the deal" strategy by bargaining with an unrealistically high starting demands, so that the less extreme, desirable results that he is aiming for would appear tame by comparison. Also Republicans are not stupid, if they did actually implement a 25% tariff on Canada/Mexico and 100% on BRICS, that would brick the economy, and therefore destroy their midterm and 2028 outlook (even if they did compromise the elections as Dems said would happen, such a tariff-induced recession would be ruinous to the GOP and piss of a ton of voters, even moreso than the economic conditions that ruined the dems this year) 2001:67C:2628:647:9:0:0:6C (talk) 04:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I've read a native ad before but this, woof. betting sites take opur money and convert it into fun bucks, disney dollars. They pay out in fun bucks and ask you to jump through hoops in an attempt to not pay out dollars paid in, it's a clever business mode!. If you are going to bet, do it in a brick and mortar casino. Torrent (talk) 08:43, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

BoN, you're assuming trump has forethought. It's been widely reported that he does not. Being consumed by revenge and bigotry, as he is, often has a self-blinding effect to potential unexpected consequences. Case in point: he was warned not to appoint GOP House members to the executive branch, which he has done. The reason is that the GOP lead over Democrats is the second lowest in history proportionally: 220-215. Appointing GOP House members to the executive causes vacancies and special elections that will take months to fill, even in 'safe' districts. It increases the likelihood of chaos and inaction within the House. Bongolian (talk) 08:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

This an ad, it's middling bullshit to the point of stirring something up but not saying anything. Online gambling is exploitive 100% of the time, nobody makes an argument that it's a smart decision. There is no barrier to creating an account or username, this guy sucks on purpose. Torrent (talk) 09:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The real story of the election is not that the Trump voters overwhelmingly came out to support him... it's that so many that elected Biden in 2020 stayed home. I have not seen yet analysis on why this was the case (and it's early, so I would not expect it). Most polling I saw emphasized that this really was a "coin flip" election regardless of any prediction, so from that perspective I don't think the polling was that bad this year.

Donald Trump's margin of victory (by the popular vote) is currently 1.5%. Although it's not 2016 (where he lost the popular vote), that's still not that big, and fits with the "coin flip" nature of 2024. And while the Republicans gained a couple seats in the Senate, they actually lost a couple of seats in the House of Representatives (their former margin was 222-213). With a few House members being plucked for cabinet positions as Bongolian mentions, it's very possible that the House Republican margin will be down to as little as 217-215 to start. This was not a "red wave" election. Just a couple of Republican defections can now stymie any bill in the House. I expect the chaos that engulfed the House in 2023 to continue.

From 2016-2018, Trump and the Republicans simultaneously both overplayed their hand rhetorically... and did nothing *too* notable (except deficit-raising tax cuts for the rich, the usual Other demonizing demagoguery, a failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act... and yes, a damaging tariff-induced trade war). The Republicans were shellacked in the 2018 House election (-42 seats) as well as a lot of local state elections as a result (although the Republicans gained 2 Senate seats). The BoN seems to assume that politicians are smart and actually remember history. Many of them aren't and many of them don't. Just look at the Fox News cabinet that Trump is assembling now. Even Republican Senators revolted on the Matt Gaetz pick, and I would be seriously surprised if Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard makes it at this point. Trump is already overplaying his hand. Why do you expect he will stop? BobJohnson (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

First off, no. I put the autoconfirmed limit on the SB not because of 'betting sites being more accurate', but the fact we were getting trollish 'Trump is going to have a huge landslide!!!' comments with zero actual evidence and I pre-emptively put the limit in because I could see them utterly derailing all conversations.

Not for the first time, BobJ is correct in their analysis, though I shall also add the fact Trump managed to eat into the Libertarian vote too and appeal to some [mainly youngish white males] non-voters. In raw numbers-wise, I wasn't seeing 'Trump gains' more than about 4% [2-3 normal]. And the sorts of people the Orange One is picking for posts have no real 'unifying ideology' behind them, only 'loyalty to Trump'. Factor in the fact they're being dredged from a small 'talent puddle' means Trump has zero honest advisors and few even intelligent advisors either. If America was the size/importance of say, Belgium the next four years would be the ultimate 'reality TV' for the world to watch and laugh at. Alas, America is a wee bit more important than that. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

There is another thing I would like to add to the "don't exaggerate the scale of Trump's win" pile. He improved on his 2020 showing but didn't equal 2020 Biden either. There are more "not MAGAs" then MAGAs, you just have to reach them. I don't know what BobJ and KP-our best election analysts in my opinion-will make of what I just said but this was not the utter vanquishing of the Democrats forever or a Reagan scale win. Of course Trump will govern like he has a massive mandate for all the bizarre fantasies of his supporters because narcissists tend to "fill in the gaps." The latest victory is always total and final, to suggest future defeat is absurd until it happens, then the next victory is total and final.-Flandres (talk) 21:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Trump failed - though only just - to win an absolute majority of the vote [49.9%] so it can be said that he didn't carry 'the majority of Americans' [ironically, the 800k who decided to vote for wormbrain even though they'd dropped out pushed this over the line]. If we look at at the whole 'possible eligible electorate', Trump got 32% of the vote, so two-thirds of Americans did not want Trump [though it must be remembered that a decent % of the 36% of 'did not vote' may have not minded Trump's return]. However, it does need to be noted that with the exception of 2020 [which I think was a freak due to it happening during Covid] 2024 had the highest turnout since 1968. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

What do you think of this youtuber I want to see some balanced opinions and your thoughts on him.

The youtuber is called Think Before You Sleep, he does political videos and has some points I can agree with such as the oversexualization of media being annoying.^{— Unsigned, by: 3.25.191.5 / talk}

Isn't that the guy who led to Illymation being doxxed because he spread misinfo about her? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

And also an alt-right anti-woke channel that also spat on Noah Samsen. His opinions are so perfectly balanced. (Why does such scum exist?) 🇷🇸 Serbian Arbiter (What would you have your arbiter do?) 20:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

From what I understand, you got it backwards. Illymation launched a campaign against him because she didn't like his video about her, including false allegations and a bunch of false reports from YouTube. In response his followers went after her. -Cory 47.16.116.201 (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

That said, as long as you can avoid using him as your central world view and too much of the manosphere stuff, he has some points

"Addicts are liars; so are food addicts"

"Willpower is a limited resource, if you want to lose weight get rid of temptation; get rid of snacks, prep meals in advance so there's 0 thought, etc."

"Learn to cook, start with simple things like X and Y"

"Toxic people WILL destroy you if you let them"

"Learn the signs of someone with childhood sexual trauma, e.g. childlike high pitched voice"

etc -Cory 2600:1017:B42F:C7D5:0:4:80DE:A601 (talk) 22:24, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

What exactly is he talking about when he says the "oversexualization of media"? How women are objectified in media? Or that "there's too many goddamn queers in my fucking video games now"? Carthage (talk) 23:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The headline video is "why woke people are making everything ugly". Anyone who uses woke as many times as this YouTuber does can be safely ignored. Also: gym bro and gamer that seems to hate women and is obsessed with fat shaming. Whee.

(Helpful hint to people obsessed with .1% bodyfat and all the "Hollywood body image" that is far from healthy for men and women alike: many men and women actually prefer a little bit of cushion on their mate! It's more cuddly.) BobJohnson (talk) 02:43, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I suspected as much. Carthage (talk) 02:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It's actually more important than merely 'preferring a bit of cushion'. Depending on age, genetics, ethnicity and activity level, the 'athlete' band for bodyfat is about 10% for men and 15% women. To push it under this [be it as a supermodel, bodybuilder or dancer] is dangerous; it starts to really fuck up your ability to heal from injuries and so on. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:04, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Woke scolding is such a disingenuous frame. The original term 'woke' was from black communities to nudge them towards code switching and police compliance to stay literally alive. It never had anything to do with a liberal agenda. Just like Climate change is a made up term because Global Warming was too specific, but now we are experiencing global warming. Much like being woke actually means watch out for racism. Much like being a person who labels anything woke, or critical race theory (we haven't heard that in a while) or blame DEI on anything but corporatism, it's okay to let these terms go away from their snarl uses. Stay woke. But also, what is this argument about people and body types? It's not related to being 'woke' in its original form. Torrent (talk) 07:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

That's what snarl words often become: generic insults that have no real meaning, other than "wah! I don't like it!". It's been part of the Republican propaganda tactics for a long time. The previous terms were things like "politically correct" and "liberal" in the 1980s-1990s. However, unlike what I remember of those terms, "woke" and "DEI" in particular are more frequently used as substitutes for your more egregious Other demonizing insults (like "nigger" and whatnot). Also, the word twisting involved with the 1980s-1990s terms were not so spectacularly weird ("DEI" is even weirder than "woke" as it originally was a business strategy pushed by highbrow MBA types).

A significant too-loud part of the gaming community seems to sadly hate women as a whole (hi, Gamergate!)... and my impression reading the socials is that, while this YouTuber might not go *quite* as far as the worst cellar dweller (according to the Wikis he actually dated another YouTuber... but very briefly, natch...), it's pretty close, at least from the video titles. There's a lot of bitterness about women, feminism, "fat acceptance", and fat women (one notices the lack of fat dudes in his complaints about the fat). If he stopped making angry hateful YouTube videos (and stopped being angry at women in general), maybe he'd get more dates... but as of now, he seems to firmly be in that self-reinforcing so-called "red pill" mindset. The generic brainless "wah! I don't like it!" woke insult fits perfectly with this type. BobJohnson (talk) 18:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually, TBYS made a video mocking Illymation for doing a "fat acceptance" video (even editing her avatar on his video thumbnail to potray her as mentally unstable), insulting her personal appearance and saying she was "endagering children by telling them is OK to be obese" (evidently, her videos being animated mean they're made for kids), in turn, his followers started harassing Illy and that's why she asked on Tumblr to report his video. Of course, TBYS played the victim and said he was being "deplatformed" and all that crap. Illy wasn't wrong in that, the guy is an insufferable asshat who just by his voice alone is probably a Stonetoss-like smug punchable face. Takenouchi Sora (talk) 03:58, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Question on editing etiquette

I've been interested in helping the Socialism article, like trying to find citations and change what might be contradictory or wrong information (considering the amount of pages which link to the Socialism article, I think it would be good to at least put it on par with the average article, even if it might not be particularly missional).

But I'm not really sure how the editing etiquette works. I've already read the Help:Etiquette article, but from what I've seen lurking in Rationalwiki, it seems like user often make what should be "controversial" edits without bringing it to the Talk page first. Should every kind of edit like this be brought to the Talk page, even ones which only change a few sentences?

I'm still new here, so I'm still figuring out how things work. Thanks! -- LunaAHHHHH 00:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Purely personal opinion here.

If you are expanding existing text, adding better refs, prettyfying it etc - don't see the need to Talk it before hand. If you're doing a significant rebuild, changing the meaning of the article and/or suggesting anything 'major', then yes - Talk it first. In this particular case, I would suggest splitting the whole article so the main 'variants' can be covered in greater detail but the main page doesn't become a doorstopper - for example how I did Technocracy a few months back. This also allows you to work on it over time - for example, you could sort out the 'précis paragraphs' on each main variant now, while saving the more detailed 'daughter' pages later. This is where the Talk pages are helpful; you might be able to find another RWian to tackle the 'Democratic Socialism' daughter, while another does 'Marxism' etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm not sure if I understand. By checking the Fossil Record of the Technocracy article, it seems like the rebuilding process was done with a single edit and no major discussion in the Talk page about the edit proposals and rearrangements. I've also seen other article revamps which share this trait, like the one which happened with 2016 United States presidential election (although the edits are more spread out). Right now, what I've been trying to do was really just making new topics on the Talk:Socialism page about a few of the problems I've found, although I think this strategy seems pretty different to the ones used in those other revamps. I feel like doing something similar to what was seemingly done in those other article reconstructions would risk many potential controversial edits considering the nature of the topic and the varying different opinions on the exact definitions and interpretations of the subject and its branches, but following my current strategy would get annoying for everyone quite quickly due to the amount of proposals which would most likely need to be discussed (if the revamp proposal was on the level of Technocracy or 2016 United States presidential election at least, which might not be fully the case with the Socialism article). Am I missing something or was the former strategy the one used for those reconstructions? -- LunaAHHHHH 02:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Be bold. There is also the work in progress template you can slap on the article you're currently revamping. So in this case, it would be {{WiP|LunaAHHHHH}}. Carthage (talk) 02:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I think to some extent you can afford to 'be bold' on Socialism, as it is fairly problematic, and one of those reasons is from what I can tell it never had a single editor look at it as a single text [which is why you're finding inconsistencies and your 'to do list' is lengthening each time you look at it] . I also found this with the George Orwell article I overhauled earlier this year. I cited Technocracy only on the idea of how you might be able to lay Socialism out - in that a lot of the text on 'variants' and so on can be split off from the main page and tackled later / by others. I didn't Talk about Technocracy because I encountered it as a barely-useful semi-stub, I did Talk about Orwell beforehand because it was a Silver article. If I found an active-ish user was fairly committed to a particular page [they'd created a lot of the content etc] I may be inclined to drop a line on their own Talk page about it. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I see, thanks everyone for the help! I think I might experiment a bit with a copy of the article on one of my sandboxes beforehand, though. I still have to plan out some of the edits more. -- LunaAHHHHH 03:20, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

forget the sandbox. just do what i do: make the edit (or a bajillion, if you so feel you need to tweak stuff) and then explain yourself on the talk page. The G (talk) 07:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Just make the edits and, if you feel a little unsure, explain what you are up to on the talk page.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:16, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Draftspace/sandboxes have their uses; for example if you're doing a complete rebuild of an article but don't want to have the WIP go over the existing one yet. You might also desire folks to comment etc on the draft while you're doing it - esp if for example, you're tackling a controversial subject and want to suss out where the right angle is [though you can also use the SB for that; I did once when I needed help in the Corbyn/antisemitism thing]. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I was mostly making edits on a sandbox to plan out before editing the main article, and maybe getting some new feedback as well. Would making a draft rather than a sandbox be better for feedback? I wasn't sure if making a draft of an already existing article was allowed or not. Or maybe it actualy is just better to edit the main article directly instead of a copy. I'm still not sure how to approach this considering all the different strategies. I hope that doesn't matter much as long as the result is good enough. -- LunaAHHHHH 17:52, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

To my knowledge, there's no rule of having both a main/draft of the same article, though if you leave it too long the draft may end up being put up for deletion. The only operational difference between draft and sandbox is that the former is still editable by anyone, so it's possible that someone might come in halfway through and do something completely different. Sandbox, in this case might be best if you're forking the content in mainspace to work on and don't want anyone to mistake it for the original. Both have the advantage over tinkering with mainspace that we have some 'prettification' editors here [sorting out bare URLs, spellchecking, grammar etc] which means they won't start doing their stuff on your work until you sent it off into mainspace.

As a rule, RW is not that fussed over 'the ways and means' of article-creation, as long as the final end product is better than what came before it. I've used three different methods myself - the 'bit by bit' style in Orwell, the 'all at once rebuild' with Technocracy and the 'hiving off to a daughter page' with Metrication in the United Kingdom [originally intended to merely be an improvement to the UK section of the metric system page, I soon realised there was too much and should be a solo page]. However, make use of the 'show preview' box while editing - nobody likes to see a fossil record which has like six pages showing us you were dicking about formatting or something. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Question about the latest Clogosphere WIGO

New York Post: "Cali counted votes until Republican lost — do Dems just not care how bad this looks?"

Why is this getting downvoted, exactly? From my perspective, it seems like the WIGO is meant to point out and criticize the New York Post's article, but the amount of downvotes makes me second guess if it's actually taking the article seriously. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 22:36, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

It's getting downvoted because the source is shit (a tabloid), and because it's an opinion piece, not news. Bongolian (talk) 00:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

"This is RationalWiki's snarkilicious take on some of the more "WTF?" or egregious blog posts, editorials, videos and social media posts out there." I would think that NY Post article fits right in then. Carthage (talk) 00:28, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, true. Maybe it's just people voting up or down for different reasons. The WIGO World page has this at the top "Voting is meant to reflect the quality and relevance of a news item — not whether said item brings good or bad news.", but the WIGO clogs has no equivalent. Obviously, quality is not relevant to the clogs, but relevance is. Bongolian (talk) 06:03, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I would advise people not to pay too much attention to the WIGO voting system. Carthage (talk) 07:40, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Thoughts on this YouTuber?

Recently, I discovered the work of a guy named N0rtist who has been trying to do a creature-collector game project about various science topics, and I wanted to hear the community's opinions on his work. LeCapraGrande (talk) 03:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I watch him sometimes, and I like his designs; I don't get why you are asking this here of all places though. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 15:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Because enthusiasm about science is one of RationalWiki's things. LeCapraGrande (talk) 22:30, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Percentage of Atheists

I'm curious about the percentage of atheists, agnostics, and religious believers on RationalWiki. I feel like that would be a fun and interesting poll to do and help learn more about each other, especially for new members.

ModeratelyR3 (talk) 07:47, 9 December 2024 (UTC)ModeratelyR3

There was a RationalWiki community survey back in 2017 (RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive280#RationalWiki Community Survey 2017 (sticky)), for which that was one of the questions. Results are here:[2]^{— Unsigned, by: Bongolian / talk / contribs}

I might make my own survey for 2024/2025 since it's been 7, almost 8 years since 2017. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 15:14, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Middle East question

I am not a Middle-East specialist - but is the Middle East likely to revert to the situation prior to the creation of the modern state system there? Anna Livia (talk) 00:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Prognostication is a fool's errand. Bongolian (talk) 06:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

We better throw out all that predictive science, then. In view of getting a plumber's quote before they do any work being the act of an idiot, I shall prove my foolishness by providing an opinion.

I'm not a middle east specialist, but I did live there for a bit in my childhood, in particular, on the Arabian Peninsula. (Next to the ARABIAN gulf. That country over on the other side? What country? I ran? what kind of name is that for a place? Purr sha? For cats?) That part of the middle east largely seems to be generally stable monarchies, so I doubt there'll be statelessness there any time soon. Further north, I think you'd have to figure out if a stateless region can survive when completely surrounded by belligerent regional state powers. But who am I to say, induction is for dum-dums! Namako (talk) 21:02, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

As various of the states have dissolved into 'local-religious-tribal-other groupings and factions etc (some of which overlap with persisting states) the possibilities can be considered. The alternatives might include the Ottoman Empire revived/some equivalent regional entity. Anna Livia (talk) 00:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

What do they mean by the Universe is nonlocally real?

So I saw a video that mentioned how physics showed that local reality isn't true, and I googled it to find the that Nobel Prize went to 3 scientists who had proved that in 2022. Apparently from what I understand it means that particles are impacted by other ones that aren't in the same area as them if they are entangled. But trying to sort out what it means exactly has been...knotty. I get conflicting accounts on how it says that reality can be real or local but not both.

Some posts I read suggests that it's proof of anti-realism: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/106476/what-are-the-ontological-implications-of-that-the-universe-is-not-locally-real#:~:text=Quantum%20mechanics%20is%20said%20to,a%20defined%20state%20before%20measurement.

Which I have personal doubts about since doesn't science posit an external reality to study. Also it would seem counterproductive to argue against measurement standards while citing one of the most precise and exacting sciences there is. From what I know about QM the math is rock solid, and also super advanced, so I'm not really sure that means anti=realism (nor am I really convinced by the other examples that top answer says).

I read the Scientific American article but was kinda disappointed by the sensationalism behind it, how physicists are "up in arms" over the upending of reality as we know it and how these three scientists made enemies in the scientific community, blah blah blah. It doesn't really get at the hard of why this is so massive, especially since it seems like knowing this doesn't really change our daily lives. Anyway here it is:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/

Popular Mechanics was the most disappointing one because it felt more like wild speculation than what the research actually showed, plus something about a paradox:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a62697436/quantom-paradox-not-real/

I feel like every new discovery in the field gets muddled by thousands of people who try to run away with it and draw conclusions that it's not saying. I'm pretty sure physics doesn't really have anything to say about realism, anti-realism, or idealism, but that hasn't stopped folks from trying. I just want to know what it means, because from the little I was able to parse it doesn't seem that disastrous.47.5.66.54 (talk) 19:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

(Non-expert opinion below)

So, the above relates to the concept of quantum entanglement -- where, unlike classic physics, individual quantum particles (we're talking things like photons / electrons / etc.) cannot be described independently... and in fact, two particles can behave the same without necessarily being near each other. Now, exactly how does this happen? Even one of the Nobel winners, John Clauser, has no clue how it works. But it is a real phenomenon, and apparently those physicists who are really good on these subjects are able to take these concepts and apply it to manipulating quantum entanglement states, which opens up some actual applications in actual cutting-edge things like quantum computing. I think the Nobel Prize website write-up on the 2022 physics prize is pretty good in giving a "pop science" explanation of what they did.

To me, there is a "toolbox" element to lots of science. Some things only make sense when looking at a certain level, some at another. Classic physics, for instance, works very well for many many things, but some observations and equations fall apart when you start looking at the "particle" level. This is where quantum physics comes in. "Locally real" is a special term in physics. Local = things can only be affected by other things in their immediate vicinity; "real" = the principle that objects have definite properties even when they aren't interacting with anything. Classic physics is for the most part a "locally real" phenomenon. Quantum physics, on the other hand, has "quirks". Of which the not-very locally-real quantum entanglement is one.

I personally wouldn't push this phenomenon towards anything philosophical (like general "anti-realism" or something) or applying to a higher-than-quantum level, given what I know (which admittedly is far from quantum expert, but still). Sure, quantum entanglement exists at a particle level, but once you get above that level, there is no such equivalent that I know of. It's a very specific thing. And one I guess we don't know a whole lot about the whys yet, even if we figured out that we maybe can use it as a tool. BobJohnson (talk) 20:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess it's not really anything to worry about on the classical level from what I see, I just get lost in people drawing crazy speculation every time something new comes out of it. I found another source that I think explains it decently, but I still don't get what is meant by the realism bit: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/733500/is-my-interpretation-of-the-underlying-idea-behind-this-2022-nobel-prize-story

Also at the classical level stuff doesn't seem to behave like this, so I'm not sure what to make of it.47.5.66.54 (talk) 01:05, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Some of it was about hidden variable approaches, but those get thrown out by a variety of theorems from the sixties. In that case, from a mathematical perspective it SOUNDS like maybe there can be no real manifold containing the system in a continuous way, but as far as I know, it's more about the EPR paradox and the implications of entanglement in general than something strictly mathematical.

I think the problem is exemplified by quantum teleportation. In view of the quantum teleporter, the nonlocality problem seems to come from the question: what state is the receiver's qubit in before they measure it? HOW and WHEN did that information get to it?

If you look at the whole process, it's kind of irrelevant - between the measurement we took to get the classical bits to send to the receiver and the final transformation, the receiver has no way of determining that they have the right state, and since the sender didn't know what it was anyway, there is no way for them to verify the experiment at any time. (Recall that in quantum mechanics, you can extract no exact information about a particular quantum state other than that it had a component that was not orthogonal to an eigenvector of the measurement operator corresponding to the outcome of the measurement).

Furthermore, the final qubit need not even have the same physical existence as the original. You can, in theory, teleport an electron spin into the polarity of a photon, for example. Or perhaps something exotic, like, 'this system has an even or odd hadron number'. More than nonlocality, I think the whole thing raises the more serious question 'what exactly is anything, anyway'?

Quantum field theory does still have essential mathematical problems that answers to these weird causal questions might help solve, but when I'm thinking about these things, I usually go with Dirac's "quantum mechanics is a calculus of results", where this kind of question is largely irrelevant, but that might be because I was taught this stuff in a maths degree. Namako (talk) 20:50, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Any Good Places For Rational AI-Focused Info/Discourse?

Anybody know of one? Most places are absolutely drowning in one flavor or another of either denialism/shillism/doomerism/etc without even attempting to be remotely objective. LessWrong in theory tries to be, but in practice...

The only decent place I've found over the last two years is https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/ but it's almost strictly a population of folks putting currently available models to work right now and discussing the best ways to do that (not that I'm against that, it's very helpful), which means there's little discussion of where the tech might reasonably be going and social/economic/philosophical implications of it, outside of a marked preference for non-corporate controlled models and fear that the big players like OpenAI will get government to regulate them into non-existence under the guise of "safety" and "think of the children".

Glitch (talk)

“They” control the weather; a new conspiracy phenomena?

I don’t know if this topic has been discussed here before, I’m just noticing a new conspiracy thread on some social media feeds about “controlling the weather”. Majorie Taylor Greene and other conspiracy theorists/climate change deniers have spewed this in the past but it seems to have gained some traction even outside of conspiracy theorist cirles in the past few months. I have heard errounous argument claiming if one can do physics than they can most ceratin control the weather.SensaurC-137 (talk) 17:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's new, but this is the first time I've heard of it from an elected person. Koafox (talk) 17:37, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah, another instance of "research paper abuse", again, something seen commonly with conspiracies. It sort of goes along with this old PHD Comics panel on the "science news cycle": how a small inconspicuous element in a dry research paper gets transformed to the point where Grandma is wearing a tin foil hat to protect herself from the evils of said research paper.

In 2014, there was a research team in a couple of universities who published a paper in Nature Photonics entitled "externally refulled optical filaments". This was a fairly dry paper about merely extending plasma channels in the air through lasers, with a wide variety of applications listed. Somehow, by the time CBS News got to talking about this paper, the headline changed: "Scientists think they can control weather with lasers". LOLWUT?

To be fair to CBS, both one of the researchers (Matthew Mills) and the University of Central Florida press release department over-focused on the "cloud seeding / induce rain and lightning" aspect of this for their press summaries... which, if you get a hold of the research paper, is barely in the text. Of course, the UCF press department has the nuance in the terms ("inducing rain and lightning", "artificially seeds") that the CBS News article ("control weather") does not.

I am guessing that since 10 years have passed since 2014 and the Google suggests nothing more after that date (edit: except for some early 2020s experiments done by the UAE), laser assisted cloud seeding has ended up proven to be more difficult than expected. Let alone controlling the weather or some bullshit like that. But I guess the story lives on in conspiracy land as "proof" that THEY CONTROL THE WEATHER (instead of "proof" that sometimes CBS News is a bit... sloppy.) A reminder to reporters to take care when making a headline. BobJohnson (talk) 18:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

The established and long-successful method of doing cloud seeding is to dump one of a range of substances into the air from an airplane to stimulate cloud formation.

To stimulate RAIN or other precipitation - not cloud formation. All those cloud seeding systems require the clouds to be present first. 20:20, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

As a general idea for use in conspiracies, controlling the weather is an ancient theme -- though traditionally ideas have been more religious and esoteric, with a shift towards sci-fi in modern times. Francis E. Dec for one believed the atmosphere had been re-engineered by an omnipotent "computer god", but had little to say about specifics in preserved rants. But more mainstream, well, it's not really about conspiracy theories and trends in them, as much as it is about politics and trends in it -- where conspiracy theory talk is generally becoming mainstreamed in some camps. The earlier stages of that Overton window shift involved conspirituality a.k.a. kookery (especially conspiracy stuff tied to good-vs-evil spiritual stuff) becoming visible online and gaining a much bigger audience. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 20:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Not that I mean to sound glib, but so what? Accumulator (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Its the sci-fi angle that intrigues me. Technological advancements and AI seems to have really sparked these conspiracies as of late.SensaurC-137 (talk) 21:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

How to handle Richard Dawkins and other former skeptics?

Hi people, noting his outrageous Xitter posts about eugenics, his apparent re-affirmation of Christianity, and "criticism" of what is really a new, a "woke scare"...wouldn't it be time to massively change the nature of his article? I'm not normally one for making articles on academics too negative, but he is so popular among self-described skeptics. This guy is clearly demented at this point and just about one step away from endorsing race science. It's not surprising if you remember his age and how things used to be back when he actually studied biology. We should really make sure here and potentially also on his main Wiki that he is not to be trusted anymore. His "classics" are old and stale rubbish anyway. Basically, the only people that still claim to read them are from the Muslim world, and I think they'll do just fine with one fewer old WASP teaching them about the universe, haha. I'm interested in what you guys have to say about my idea before I make the attempt.

It's a similar story with Michael Shermer bashing the excellent work of Scientific American, with James Randi, effective altruism grifter Peter Singer...and. it. just. goes. on. I think we should be a lot more decisive in our opposition to these people precisely because they have falsely adopted/attempted to shift the label of "skeptic". True skepticism means to deterritorialize the power structures of all sorts of supremacism. Kadashova (talk) 00:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, these things are being mentioned, but they really tarnish their "legacy" so much that they arguably should be the main focus of their articles. Kadashova (talk) 02:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Why don't you write an objective article and let the reader make up their own minds? Not that I necessarily agree with whatever Dawkins is on about these days, nor am I advocating "neutrality" per se, but setting out with the object of writing a "negative" bio isn't very different from a smear. Accumulator (talk) 02:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an "objective" article, every article is written from some point of view. No human being is capable of making content that describes things from a "view from nowhere". Factuality is what is important -- but that is stating a value judgement, nothing neutral about it. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 07:56, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

You were very recently accused of being a troll, were you not? Kadashova (talk) 02:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

You're deflecting. Address the point instead of calling me names. Accumulator (talk) 02:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

"objectivity" is precisely the kind of dog whistle that one should never take too seriously from potential trolls like you. Women for example were historically accused of being "less objective", "too emotional", and therefore not as good scientists! And de facto fascists like Peter Thiel talk about "free speech" all the time. Kadashova (talk) 02:10, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

The user Pinkerite has documented the race pseudoscience of some of these including Michael Shermer so may consider updating Dawkins article, you might want to leave a message on her talk-page. She also updated the Jerry Coyne page. It's just Shermer/Coyne/Dawkins who have jumped on the anti-woke wagon to gain more views. It's not an epidemic that is investing the skeptic community at large, it's just those influencers that are grifting. Dawkins is nearly 84 and doesn't look in good health, I doubt he will be with us for many more years. I listened to Dawkins debate Denis Noble on evolution last year, Dawkins knowledge about evolution is about 20 years out of date. He's unfamiliar with all of the recent work on epigenetics. Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:18, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I agree! Thanks for the details. Wiki has a really good article on Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Dawkins is so out of touch that I legitimately believe he has probably never even heard of it. Kadashova (talk) 02:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the point. Accumulator (talk) 02:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm a bit doubtful about basically turning his article on its head, with the emphasis on the bad stuff. Is there anything objectionable from a RationalWiki standpoint in his published books? I've only read two of his books. That said, I'm in no way endorsing whitewhashing the article, so if there's more to add or expand on about his bad or dubious qualities, then go ahead. I'm not so sure that age is the explanation either. With fame, there seems to be a great temptation towards ultracrepidarianism. Bongolian (talk) 02:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Hm, also makes sense. My comment actually sounds a bit ageist now that I read it again, sorry. What's certainly another possibility, is that he lost all the money he made publishing and now gets paid for appearances like that. Kadashova (talk) 02:34, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

And, yes, I'm very sure there are sources to paint a clearer image. Actually, I've heard that there'll be an article in a few months, discussing their ongoing super-grift. Kadashova (talk) 02:45, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

This video is a long one, about how to accept 'The Death of the Author' but it's Specifically about Neil Gaiman's unfortunate humanity. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T31HKuabyMA&pp=ygUOVGhlIGxlZnQgY29va3M%3D It is long, and rambly if you just want it to hit a couple points. But the main point is, when I was into Dawkins, he had some really good shit to say about theism. When I was less into Dawkins, he had some really stupid things to say about specific religions. And when he went full anti-Muslim, I was like 'I have some friends who are Muslim because you taught me all religions are equally incorrect, eat a Dick Richard.'. It's not that I'm less atheist or antitheistic now, but I understand he might have been caught up in that bullshit anti-muslim sentiment that also shone through with Sam Harris and Bill Mahr, like, get a spine. Apologetics for anti-religion bigotry targeted at Muslims is still apologetics for bigotry. And it's a huge bummer that Gaiman did the awful shit he did. I think it's fine to accept them as influence and do better. Torrent (talk) 05:45, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Dawkins has had a profound influence on both Skepticism and atheism and he has raised the profile of both in the public consciousness. There can be no doubt about that and this should be recognized. His books on these topics have influenced millions and he deserves praise for this.

Where his more recent comments have been offensive and wrong this should also be recognized. People change and nobody is perfect - I would suggest that all this be in his article. why wouldn't it be?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 06:51, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Tbh I am a bit skeptical that his influence on skepticism and athiesm has been positive and genuinely deserves praise. It is figures like him that force me to caveat my belief in scientific skepticism by avoiding the personal label of "skeptic" because of the political and cultural baggage associated with it. I think the sort of "New Athiesm" association that figures like Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris share actually brings a lot of what is of epistemic importance in the value of skepticism closer to obscurity. I also don't think a lot of these figures were consistent about their self-proclaimed evidentialism. This has only become more aparant over time. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 08:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

This! Just think about Christopher Hitchens who already had certain tendencies. Soon enough, his brother Peter Hitchens came out as a crypto-fascist, even appearing alongside alt-lite grift-god Jordan Peterson multiple times. As we were told by comrade Brecht on a similar issue: "The womb he crawled from is still going strong." It's especially noticeable how intense all their islamophobia is. Many of them really hate Muslims both on a personal and ethnic level. I think the problem is a naive reading of skepticism not carefully structured and constrained by good institutions. In other words, they reason so much and all over the place, apply pseudo-deep math all over the place (like in the "eugenic math" of population statistics or the burgeois pseudo-science of neoclassical economics) and so on, just to fall right back into instinct in the end. So there is a clear line from the overly reflective talk of Dawkins to the vulgar "Noticing" bigotry of Steve Sailer. Kadashova (talk) 08:27, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I generally think that "New Atheism"'s influence died right around the time of Elevatorgate. The New Atheism movement had some elements that were welcome, but in retrospective, it ended up having a similar problem among other heavily upper-crust male-dominated sects (like, say, libertarianism) -- very little empathy and far too much bravado and macho posturing. Since it was unable to expand beyond this (and, as Elevatorgate proved, actually resisted such to some degree), it has become irrelevant, and even more so once much of New Atheism drifted towards bullshit like the alt-right / alt-lite or crypto (which, particularly the later, also have a "upper-crust male-dominated" flavor). Richard Dawkins may still be tweeting, sure, and his opinions may have drifted to the point where he swallows Russian transphobe bait hook line and sinker. But who out there actually cares other than the neo-Nazis that remain on Twitter?

I can't speak for other countries, but from my American perspective, the biggest "advocate" for atheism was not the New Atheism bros, but the overall transformation of the American Christian church into an intolerant political cult, as exemplified by the Religious Right. Over the last 20 years, I see this as the primary reason why "nones" (including agnostics and "nothing in particulars") have transformed from a rather small minority of Americans into a little under a third of the American population. BobJohnson (talk) 15:18, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Also religious dones, which are people who left religion because of bad experiences associated with it; A lot of queer people fall under this category, and I know a few. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I all just goes to show that you can be "a skeptic" and also an arsehole. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 20:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Credulously repeating transphobic talking points doesn't seem very "skeptical" to me. If skepticism is to be a brand to flaunt and not a mode of inquiry, then sure, Dawkins is a skeptic. And skepticism has lost all meaning. Carthage (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

What - one has to be skeptical about absolutely everything, and can't hold other (crap) positions on various topics? Doesn't sound like anything/one I would recognise as a human being - a robot of some sort perhaps.Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 00:46, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Skepticism is about accepting as "true" things for which there is good evidence. The fact that an individual skeptic might not follow this process in some cases says nothing about the validity of skepticism. Claiming skepticism has "lost all meaning" because a particular individual individual who self-identifies as a skeptic gets some stuff wrong - well, that would seem to be the reaction of a human being.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:43, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Did Dawkins really 're-affirm Christianity'? I might be mis-remembering here, but I thought it wore a qualified positivity towards cultural Christianity, which was perhaps said in regards towards the tame Church of England variant rather than fundies. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe that he said that he was "Cultural Christian" - making a distinction between someone who believes Christianity is true and someone who likes the trappings of Christmas like Christmas Carols.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It's a ridiculous concept if you think about it. In some ways, these people lean into the patriarchal and anti-science aspects of standard Christianity even more.[3] Very fringe. Kadashova (talk) 18:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Assassination of UnitedHealthcare Executive Brian Thompson

NBC News Link. While the specific motive is still unknown, obvious internet speculation is that it is vengeance/justice against the company and the executive. My initial reaction is that it seems long overdue for such an event to have happened; I've read articles and stories about the atrocity of American private healthcare, and have seen the many memes (if they're any indication of general public opinion and state of things). Checking close to a dozen different subreddit posts regarding the assassination and top comments are users agreeing or outright praising the killing. Will the assassination cause industry leaders and politicians to take real action to improve things? Or simply double down and increase security for such executives? I'm of the opinion that with America's general decline, especially with other recent events, the latter will happen and more violence against business executives can be anticipated. Impiricism (talk) 22:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Taking "the pulse of America" from social media is a fool's errand in some ways, but the one thing I noticed is that, on the socials, the CEO grave-pissing comments actually were spread pretty in a relatively bipartisan fashion. Both certain very Trumpism oriented boards and more liberal / progressive boards were, if not engaging in "Fuck UnitedHealthCare" stories, making jokes about "pre-existing conditions" and "out-of-network" hospitals and other things insurance companies use to jack up bills. And there was very little push-back at all. If there was, it often was more in the style of that famous Clarence Darrow quote about obituaries.

Now, er, the polls on American healthcare don't *quite* reflect the !!!SOCIAL MEDIA ANGER!!!, which is what you'd expect (social media attracts blowhards like lamps attract moths). But they do reflect the reality of American healthcare: a meh-quality system with outrageous expenses due to entrenched monopolies jacking prices for the benefit of the ruling class. The overall "pulse of the people" is probably not as brash and bloodthirsty as the always angry socials, but American healthcare being shit seems to be one thing most Americans agree on these days.

(I'll wait on the actual motive, if it comes out at all that is, to comment on anything on that angle.) BobJohnson (talk) 00:32, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The result will be simple; they'll withdraw more behind gated communities, bodyguards and bulletproof glass believing that 'it's not safe anymore'. There shall be little to nil actual introspection on how this situation ended up happening, even when they one day wake up and realise they're living in a horrible 'rich person's paradise' like say, South Africa or Brazil where you've always got two sets of razor-wire and an armed guard between themselves and 'the ordinaries'. A few years ago I started to wonder whether at least some of them had started to appreciate actually living in a land where class tensions were sufficiently low enough to allow them to say, go shopping or walk in the park without having a real risk of being robbed/kidnapped/attacked [ie have a smaller bit of cake with a smile rather than a bigger bit with a knife in it] but I don't think they are either smart enough or give enough fuck to actually think this through. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The United States corporate elite is legendarily short-sighted and callous so I agree with KP-learning from this assumes they have the capacity to realize or care their actions might somehow be harmful to a lot of other people. Can't wait to see this used by private health insurance apologists to say anybody advocating for expanding healthcare access is a terrorist. "BRIAN THOMPSON 12/24 NEVER FORGET"-Flandres (talk) 01:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

A bit of a tangent, but this reminds me of an interview with a person who's job is to make retreats/redoubts/bunkers for the ultra-rich I read a bit back. That one of the questions they keep on asking them is 'how could we keep the staff in-line when normality ends' ie they're suspecting the say civilisation crumbles said staff will turn on them [esp say, their security detail]. When they suggested that, y'know perhaps treating them like fellow human beings with worth and generally being 'a good boss' now to ensure loyalty in the future, they usually got looks of confusion and amazement - they wanted to hear about shock collars and loyalty drugs instead. Says a more about their thought processes than anything else. KarmaPolice (talk) 03:00, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Can you send a link to the interview? I wanna read it and share it with others. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 16:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Alas, I read it a while back on my phone [which is Incognito'd up to hell] so I don't have it to hand. I'll try to remember how I found it last time and hope the links still exist... KarmaPolice (talk) 16:19, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice Did you find it? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 00:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Was this the interview in question? Your description rang a bell. Carthage (talk) 09:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

All I have to say is that the memes on Twitter about this incident are a bunch of bloodthirsty cringe. Le sigh. LeCapraGrande (talk) 04:06, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Shooter is/was right-wing?

What's going on with this? I thought this had the makings of a symbolic act of resistance against capitalism and inequity in healthcare. Now it seems that Mangione liked all kinds of alt right profiles on Xitter?!? I don't know what to think anymore. Although I wouldn't usually demand violence, do you think he maybe just became politically sane again in his three months off-grid? Don't get it at all. Kadashova (talk) 18:55, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page about the incident reads:

Police believe that he was inspired by Ted Kaczynski's Industrial Society and its Future.[13] According to Business Insider, Mangione's posts showed skepticism of doctors and supported the idea that "his worldview was influenced by reactionary right-wing thinkers".[68]

Mangione's account posted a Goodreads review of Industrial Society and Its Future, describing Kaczynski as "rightfully imprisoned" and was critical of his use of violence against innocent individuals. The review (which gave the manifesto four out of five stars) also said that "'Violence never solved anything' is a statement uttered by cowards and predators" and that "when all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive."[69][70][71] His social media routinely expressed concerns over pornography, DEI programs, fertility rates, "wokeism", secularization, and the decline of Christianity, and promoted traditionalist ideas.[72][73][74][75][13]

Mangione appeared to be frustrated with the medical field and showed a skeptical attitude towards both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, while showing apparent support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s run for president in 2024. In July 2024, Mangione described reactions to Project 2025, a plan for Trump's second term developed by The Heritage Foundation, as "qanon but for redditors".[68]

I think the bipartisan sympathy for the killer despite this says more about the state of US Healthcare than anything else. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 19:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

From all I know, Mangione's "right wing" is basically what is called "grey tribe" in some corners. Libertarian-ish, fascinated by tech and futurism, rationalist / utilitarian leanings, atheist / agnostic. Actually made a graduation speech mentioning the term "singularity". A seemingly very Silicon Valley-ish attitude, and one knows that this side has shifted towards reactionary of late, embracing natalism / eugenics, anti-"woke", elitism, authoritarianism, traditionalist culture, etc. (See Elon Musk, neoreactionary movement, etc.)

Ultimately, I don't think this matters too much to the motive; from my vantage point, it seems like that all of this was overridden by "bad back pain" and "shitty ass health care system". But given that Silicon Valley tech *is* one of the elite monopolies these days, it's an interesting little "wrinkle" in a culture that traditionally is associated with them. It's not like the "tech overlords" are any better than the "health insurance overlords", really. BobJohnson (talk) 19:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Recent elections, to what extent is it all about global economics?

Some time back, elsewhere I saw discussion of a Financial Times article (non-paywalled copy) arguing that the US election, the UK election before it, and further recent elections, were all decided by global economics getting shaky due to pandemic after-effects, war, etc., bringing financial strain to populations. The good and bad moves made by the campaigning sides largely didn't matter at all, the argument goes. Regardless of the ideology of incumbents and which policies they push, they're automatically doomed to be rejected in favor of the opposition as soon as widespread economic shakiness like this sets in. Is this too reductive a view, or does it get to the heart of the matter? Are all the other things, the focus of nearly all debate surrounding the elections, dwarfed in significance? --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 18:54, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The immigration/border issue played a major role too. Arizona was the reddest swing state this year, and it's also a state where people are very angry about the border. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 19:21, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Immigration has sure been a major political theme across the Western world of late. The article briefly touches on that as well, suggesting that instead of inflation+unemployment, a new idea of a "misery index" for how a population deems its situation could be inflation+immigration instead. Immigration is also linked to larger global developments much like inflation is, but policy can affect it more firmly and directly. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 19:31, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the anti-immigration moves etc is a symptom of the wider disease, not the cause. And the cause is this: the advanced-democratic world never politically 'dealt with' the after-effects of the 07-08 'Neoliberal Crisis', and we've been slogging about that muddy field since then - the war, pandemic, inflation spikes etc have merely been exacerbating factors. For example, here in the UK we suffered worse in the pandemic because of 'Austerity' in the '10s [brought in after bank bailouts meant 'there was no money left'] made our nation in every respect a lot less resilient.

I will also argue that Corp interests and Third Way between them have proved simultaneously 'too strong' but 'too weak'. The former because there's enough strength left in them to resist any genuine 'left-wing'/'populist' moves to even simply getting capitalism functioning 'fairly' again but they have proven too weak/timid to be able to confront right-wing populism and the authoritarians who use them for their own malign dreams. A lot of shit we're dealing with now is due to their decisions way before 2008; the Big Public are susceptible to fake news because you for a generation encouraged a passive democracy where the voters only turn out to vote so you deliberately didn't bother building up voting blocs or even simply educating them, while the increasing hardening of class into caste while all the while pretending class no longer exists and the malign arrogance of giving poor people lectures in 'personal responsibility' while proving to be the biggest lazy welfare mamas in town [this is worse than it looks because it's reducing arguments to 'zero-sum games' which I personally describe as 'lifeboat politics' - throwing twenty people in a boat with 15 MREs and then showing them the dozens in the water swimming towards them...]

To quote Gramsci: 'The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.' And while history doesn't repeat itself, it does have a tendency to rhyme...

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3871147-the-21st-centurys-gramsci-problem/

KarmaPolice (talk) 19:35, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm getting towards the end of Brian Merchant's book Blood in the Machine, and as it happens, he mentions toward the end a Brookings Institute commentary. The commentary argues that automation in industry, which displaces workers, also increases the Red-Blue divide, with the displaced workers more likely to vote for "radical political change", whatever that happens to be.[4] The commentary is based on the statewide results of the 2016 election in which Shitler won the first time. The automation tech bro CEOs, for the most part, bought his second election this year with the help of his xenophobic rhetoric, that miscast their problems as "other" rather than the unrestrained tech CEOs who bought him. Bongolian (talk) 19:37, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Fascism is really appealing to the executive class because it redirects class resentment away from them and towards whatever minority they've decided to scapegoat. Carthage (talk) 19:39, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't describe that as a 'Red-Blue divide', Bongolian; I would call that more a divide between those who like the current status quo and those who don't - and this cuts through political lines; a huge amount of folks who voted Labour and Democrat this year did so not because they liked or supported their shitty Third Way, but because they hated the alternative more, just like a decent % of Tory/Reform and Republican voters did so because they felt the other side would take their advantages away. The problem with automation and coming AI is again, the old-fashioned Marxian 'Crisis in Capitalism' - aka capital has developed the means to make product with so little labour that labour can no longer afford to buy the products it makes, thus making the whole system gum up - the spiralling debt-mountains from corps to the state to the individual suggests we're increasingly only dodging this crash-point by constantly magicking up 'money' to keep the show on the road for a bit longer. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:58, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the longer-term picture, there's also now a rise in left-wing populism in Europe, as in France and Germany where a new left grows, and in the Nordic countries where the old left adapts and changes as in Denmark (and expect Sweden to follow along fully). But this is populism with features progressive people don't like, it is social conservatism mixed with economic left or sometimes just Third Way ideas (or a varying blend). It adopts the xenophobia of the right-wing populists so as to steal their appeal, and sometimes, like in Germany and France and in countries where it goes illiberal (like Hungary) it also goes "anti-West" and anti-EU and flirts with Putin. This may well grow to be the main competition to the old ideologies and the right-wing populist challengers. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

However, social progressivism as-is has compromised itself by a too-close linking with Third Way - after all, it was the hope of the folks like Biden in the 80s that if only we could 'have more social progress' we wouldn't need to actually work on actual economic inequalities. What's more, I think a decent % of said progressives have been angered/dismayed/saddened by the shallowness/ineffectiveness of their 'past reforms', mainly due to a) a lack of Big Public 'buy-in' and b) effective neutering by the NeoLib elites the moment it steps on their toes [or lessens their amount of money/power possessed]. In some respects, they tried a kind of 'revolution from above' with some very tepid allies.

It is perfectly possible to be on the side of 'societal progress' while not being 'a member of the woke brigade'; a lot of this is merely admitting that for a lot of your 'electoral friends' they are of limited to nil interest and as such we're giving it less priority in speeches, legislation plans etc. One good example of this was British Labour under Harold Wilson in the 60s; we had a lot of 'liberal social reforms' which dealt with a lot of the woke causes of this era [homosexuality, censorship, abolition of hanging etc] but Wilson officially rarely backed them - instead he merely gave room for senior politicians to 'make the case' for it and if they could snowball enough support for it to get it into law. In a way, he scored good 'cakeism' - he wasn't hugely associated with the 'woke reforms' by those who didn't like them but he got a bit of credit by those who did like them that he didn't actually block them. And we have to remember, a lot of the minorities progressives supposedly support are also poor and therefore, more left-wing economics would instantly benefit them too.

Put glibly; we tried your way for forty years and it didn't really work. It's time for another strategy to be attempted. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

We shouldn't throw advocacy for social minorities to the wayside. There's nothing stopping someone from being both a social and economic progressive at the same time. They kind of go together in a way, and lot of progressives are dead-set against "woke capitalism" because capitalists don't actually care about the changes needed to bring about equality. It's "performative wokeness." The fact that there are a few token women and people of color now in power does not do anything to end the structures of power that harm minorities. The takeaway to "woke capitalism" shouldn't be class reductionism and rejection of social justice, it should be to fight back against neoliberal co-option of social justice movements, and the hate mills that also have a vested interest in tying a perception of social justice activism to the socioeconomic elites. Carthage (talk) 21:25, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

There's a minority both socially and economically progressive. Indeed what I had in mind when I just wrote 'progressive' earlier. That however does not appeal to the masses, and is a way only tried before in the form of the "old social democracy" that's long gone out of fashion. It seems like there's currently a polarization in which the majority is split into two camps, where in one of them supporting the old "establishment" goes hand in hand with social liberalism or indifference, while in the other, social conservatism or even a socially reactionary attitude goes hand in hand with wanting change, regardless of whether the change is otherwise to the left or the right. Yeah, this seems to point to the most likely "new left" of the future. I don't care much for what I read a socialist describe and reject as the politics of "corporate feminism" either. It's just a shame that when a new way is to be tried, blind contrarianism and scapegoating of minorities has to be blended into the mix by popular demand, as that's what the majority craves. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 22:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

You're throwing terms out all over the shop. So, what socially would you regard as 'dead centre' of American social attitudes right now? KarmaPolice (talk) 23:52, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Dead center? The "dead center" is firmly in the right. But that doesn't mean we should give up activism for, say, trans rights. If you have a left-wing that's not motivated by a fundamental belief in solidarity and equality, then I would call that a left-wing that has betrayed its values. Economic justice is social justice. The New Left of the 1960s got this. The Black Panther Party got this. Hell, plenty of people today get this. Hbomberguy produced an entire video about how "woke capitalism" is merely just a marketing stunt. It's a recognized phenomenon in progressive circles that established structures of power will try to co-opt liberatory movements to rob them of their revolutionary value and bring them in-line with the status quo. We should combat the fact that the Overton Window is being pulled to the right by trying to pull it back left. We don't go right with it. Marginalized people don't stop existing just because recognizing that they exist and have their own grievances becomes inconvenient to politicos, and they won't stop agitating for their rights either. Carthage (talk) 00:08, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

But the centre can't be right-wing. The right wing is right wing, oddly enough. If right-wing positions were 'centre', that would become the new centre and I assume the 'further right' becoming the right. Overton windows shift all the time; for example the idea that women should be permitted to vote [or even all men should be allowed to] was a 'left-wing position' in about 1900, while the centre was a very tepid 'hmm, I'm not sure' and the right was 'over my dead body'. This is part of why social reactionaries are getting more and more shitty; American fundies are still peddling the same old shit they were in the 1980s and then it was perhaps 'a bit on the conservative side' but now is full-on 'reactionary' and they kind of know it in their heart of hearts [though don't want to admit it].

But now to the main point; a) what evidence do you use to believe the 'dead centre' is firmly right and b) can you provide a kind of 'example line' where you think they've got to socially? KarmaPolice (talk) 00:47, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

How do you define "left" or "right"? If they're just sections of a map, then I suppose you're right. In some cases, even antisemitism can be seen as a "centrist" position. And I myself have argued before that politics is ultimately contextual, so you're preaching to the choir. This isn't mutually exclusive with the notion that "left" and "right" also carry certain connotations with them, that can convey a person's general set of beliefs with a short label. So when I said, in response to "what socially would you regard as dead center of American social attitudes right now," the fact that I said "it's firmly on the right" has obvious connotations of "it's becoming more conservative." Was that a poor choice of words on my part in response to what I perceive as a "gotcha" question? Maybe. I don't appreciate games like this, KP. Trying to distract from my criticism of your contention that the left should embrace class reductionism, and that the "economic justice advocates are separate people from social justice advocates" talking point is, a) demonstrably an overgeneralization, b) the result of neoliberal co-option of liberatory movements a la "woke capitalism," and c) a reactionary talking point peddled by grifters who deliberately conflate woke capitalism with genuine social justice activism and then pass that conflation (and its associated connotations) off to their very big audiences. In case I'm wrong, then I apologize. Carthage (talk) 00:59, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Am I a person who plays games? Or engages in gotya? As you've seemingly completely missed the point I was trying to make, I'll spell it out.

Here in Blighty, I hear a ton of crud all the time about 'how the British people are conservative' and all that [I blame the fact partly because I watch GB News etc]. But it turns out when you actually do proper polling on their views they're more socially liberal than given credit for; that for example about two thirds are 'very worried' about climate change, 75% believe that 'government action' should be main/primary driver for change on that front and 49% think transphobia is a serious issue in the country.

Welcome to the 'centre' of the British people's social views. Not like you'd know this from our shitty media, politicians and that cess-pit which is social media, though! Thus me asking; 'what is the American people's 'centre'? Because I have a suspicion that here in the UK, a lot of the perceived 'right swing' socially was not because there were more of them, but they simply got a lot louder and the media etc amplified them. That in some way this is a positive development, because like with the 'woke capitalists', these fuckers have merely dropped the pretence, shown their true colours and god, it's horrible. It's like what I've argued before; that when it came down to policy there wasn't much difference between a 'moderate Republican' and 'MAGA' - only the style and tone was different, and now the latter has repeatedly fucked over the former in full view of all so we all know now where they really stand.

I admit, I am a bit on the 'Old Left' side of things, but not so hidebound to see anything that not class as 'false consciousness'. Just that ultimately, a lot of the issues regarding minorities and so on is about class - for example, one of the major issues facing Native Americans is the fact they have so little intergenerational capital because they were so violently shoved into an extreme underclass position and then held down there, while a lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is down to the 'labour aristocracy' fearful of competition eroding their relatively cushy positions. No, what I advocate is to primarily focus on 'economic justice' and to make that the centrepiece of campaigns, stressing universality over factional interests, telling any 'performative wokeness' to go to hell while doing some actual effective reforms which would help social justice [for example, police reforms which both increase it's competence and reduces the institutional racism] without it explicitly being labelled as such [I would ban terms like diversity, equity, inclusion and intersectionality from all official documents, for example]. Lastly, social justice half the time sucks when it comes to propaganda. I mean abolish the police? Come on, surveys show that even a majority of black Americans support the concept of policing! It makes us look like a bunch of out of touch cranky weirdos. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

You have to admit that when you bandy about terms like "woke brigade," and you react more harshly to my point that "the problem isn't as much social justice as it is the perception that woke capitalism creates and the right-wing exploits" than to "It's just a shame that when a new way is to be tried, blind contrarianism and scapegoating of minorities has to be blended into the mix by popular demand, as that's what the majority craves," (which you didn't comment on at all) that it's understandable that leaves a certain impression. I'll fully admit to being wrong with my impression that you're a class reductionist, but I think that impression is still an understandable one. Framing matters, and the way progressivism has been framed in this thread, as basically being "woke capitalism that doesn't give a shit about economic justice," (cf: "However, social progressivism as-is has compromised itself by a too-close linking with Third Way."/"And we have to remember, a lot of the minorities progressives supposedly support are also poor and therefore, more left-wing economics would instantly benefit them too.") is what I take issue with. From what I see, it's the progressives who are advocating for policies like a minimum-wage increase, universal healthcare, and public housing expansion/protection. Biden only promised student debt relief in 2020 because of pressure from his progressive flank. Carthage (talk) 03:03, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I reacted a bit harshly on this. It's a sore spot of mine, I admit. I hail from minorities that said brigade never really gave a toss about, from a class ignored by previous, have had to stomach many condescending lectures on 'my privilege' and similar and have had enough crash-ups with them over the years that it every well could have spun me into the arms of the hard right [let us remember, Mussolini was a socialist in his youth...]. Even now, the words 'social justice' conjure up in my head rainbow lanyards, horrible 'diversity' training, tokenistic corp crap, bourgeois women asking/expecting 'female solidarity' with the working-class women they exploit on a daily basis, 'degrowth' types demanding the poor consume less now and never aspire to have nice stuff, militant vegans, anti-policing cranks and the very earnest 'human gramophones' who talk in polysyllabic jargon and organise the occasional heresy trials within their little communities because they have little to nil power on the actual world.

Do the right-wing exploit the above? Sure. But all the above comes also from direct personal observation [and I'm amicable towards the goals of social justice]. More importantly, I came to the conclusion some time ago that all too many 'social justice' are distinctly iffy in smell - that all too often, it ignores the class divisions within the minority - the 'bourgeois woman wanting sisterhood with the working class women they exploit' and guess who's oh so often are the self-appointed leaders for 'their people'? I noticed this most glaringly in #MeToo; almost nil coverage of the millions of working class women who have to deal with all that disgusting crap day in/out and with even less of a platform to be heard or weapons to fight back with. Seven years later, what did it actually achieve apart from 'increasing awareness' and perhaps sending a very small clutch of slimeballs to the sin-bin? Almost fuck all, like most of the other social justice campaigns I've seen over the years.

It's why I say social justice got neutered because it was too tight with Third Way. That every time there has been a genuine 'revolutionary upsurge' [BLM, Grenfell, Banking Crisis] the movement's leadership has either decided, was persuaded and/or was tricked into funnelling it into supporting Third Way ends and means - directing folks to passively vote for the 'right' party and basically, let them get on with it [they don't] and that energy is then dissipated. And as a result, it now has a terrible smell about it and the term should be retired from folks vocab and that strategy book burned. KarmaPolice (talk) 05:26, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

OK, I can understand this. Thank you for clarifying. Carthage (talk) 05:33, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

KarmaPolice in a nutshell: Liberté, égalité, fraternité, not diversity, equity, and inclusion! LongStylus (talk) 02:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey, it's a good concept which hasn't been properly tried out yet. Plus, when it comes down to it social justice doesn't really have any answers regarding economic inequalities outside of it's designated minorities [ie the ones they like]. Lastly, this doesn't mean a party advocating this would have to be 'socially conservative' [ie more 'right' than the people's centre] - in fact, it can be cautiously socially liberal - I go back to my Wilson example, and here today the way the vote on assisted dying was handled [a Govt can make it a lot easier for liberal legislation to get done without officially coming out to support it, which can be in a way described as 'woke by stealth']. But this requires working out where the people's 'centre' is in the first place. So I repeat my question from above; where do you think the American people's 'societal/cultural centre' is right now? I mean above it was said 'it is firmly right', do you mean you genuinely believe that 'centrist America' has in fact become less in favour of stuff which had been accepted as 'generally okay' say, twenty years ago? KarmaPolice (talk) 04:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's true. Social justice advocates are often the ones advocating for economically progressive policies: for economic democracy, for unionization, better work conditions etc. Economic justice and social justice are not separate concepts. I've gone on about this at length. Carthage (talk) 19:42, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

From my own experience, reading and hearing - no, they're not. All too often, their advocating for economic justice is only in relation to their own preferred minorities. It's part of the reason why the white working class hetro males are so fucking angry; they've fallen behind because almost no 'social justice' types have even bothered considering that they are also an oppressed group which deserve support [or worse, they are considered 'the enemy' due to their pasty skin, possession of external genitals and attraction to women]. Then there's the little issue that many minorities end up being led by self-appointed 'community leaders' who all too often are bourgeois and steer 'their movement' to their personal goals and then promptly desert, sell out or drive into a ditch once completed. To paraphrase Lenin on the failed 1905 Revolution in Russia - 'the bourgeois is only revolutionary to further their own interests' - that the moment they've got that, they're out the door quicker than you can say 'allyship'.

This argument isn't anything new - in fact, it's the one Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst had some 110 years ago and fell out over regarding the fight for Women's Suffrage. In short, Sylvia 'got' that many of the issues of women were class-based in origin and thus saw 'the true enemy' behind it all, while Christabel wasn't having a second of that rot and while militant to the point of extremism was very conventional in the respects that her goal was to extend the bourgeois revolution of the late 19th Century to women and then leave it at that. And while I can't say what your particular POV is on this, from my seat it appears that most things which come under the banner of 'social justice' has far too many 'Christabels' and not enough 'Sylvias' about. What's more, capitalism has become very adept in presenting minor cosmetic improvements to either trick or neutralise many Christabels.

Economic and social justice are related, yes; but experience tells me that social justice minus economic justice means precious little because in capitalist societies your 'rights' degrade and vanish the poorer you get - therefore, [for example] the poor woman shall continue to be shit on daily while her rich 'sister' gets to actually to enjoy those rights and freedoms because she has the capital to ensure they get given to her. Economic justice minus social justice? Well... we've just given those shit-on minorities the capital to allow them to fight [and fight well] for their own social justice. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

To me, that's just the distinction between liberal feminism and more class-conscious milieus of feminism. There are plenty of "class-conscious feminists" out there, so while there are probably more Christabels than Sylvias, that does not mean the Sylvias are by any means rare. The antidote to liberal feminism is intersectionality. Socialist feminists and anarcha-feminists tend to be intersectional feminists. TERFs are not. Carthage (talk) 03:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The key problem is that 'Christabels' dominate the mainstream debate and narratives - so many of the Big Public think 'this is feminist social justice'. That even if we could weed out all the ones clearly mainly motivated by misandry and/or the ones so terrible at public speaking etc they'd help the cause by being silent there still is the issue that a lot of viewers will be thinking a) 'do you actually have an fucking plan for concrete change?' and/or b) 'so how does this help me, as an outsider?'. Sometimes instinctively, folks get that our Christabels have zero interest in any other cause save their own and that as they have zero desire to actually change the general structure of society their demands for 'more cake for women' equals 'less cake for men'. I remember reading a mission statement for such a Christabel group recently, and a key bit of their plan is 'convincing men to surrender their privilege'. How does this read to men? 'Take a pay cut so she can get a pay raise'. Yeah, good fucking luck with that, think it's gonna be about as effective as 'personal carbon footprints' are gonna solve the climate emergency.

These are the folks I'm saying to tell to go to hell. The ideology they're touting is fairly ineffective in genuine reforms, their rhetoric is offputting to most folks outside of the minority in question, may in fact be counter-effective because it pisses more folks off than actually helps and helps to reinforce the differences between the different groups for no real purpose. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"I remember reading a mission statement for such a Christabel group recently, and a key bit of their plan is 'convincing men to surrender their privilege'. How does this read to men? 'Take a pay cut so she can get a pay raise'." Is that what they're actually saying, though? To the privileged, equality feels like oppression. Civil rights is not a zero-sum game, despite what reactionaries would have us believe. Gains for women do not equate at all to losses for men. I am actually going to assume that, since this is a libfem group from what you've told me, that they do ignore matters of class, but the statement "convince men to surrender their privilege" itself does not by any means imply a kind of reverse patriarchy (a matriarchy, if you will). Carthage (talk) 10:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

That site, like a lot of Christabels talk in so much bloody jargon I'm not exactly sure what they actually mean [sometimes to the point I suspect even they don't know what they really mean]. And the very word 'surrender' means 'to give away something'. It's at least shitty use of language - I mean when black campaigners call to end 'white privilege' regarding policing, they're not calling for them all to enjoy the daily experience of 'dealing with LEOs while black', are they [wait, perhaps they are]? And the right-wing ghouls have portrayed this as a zero-sum game both socially and economically [I call it 'lifeboat politics'] which means yes, a lot of men [esp the well-heeled and educated] do think it means less for them and yes, some do take this to the conclusion that 'the libruls' want to construct a society where they [white straight males] are on the bottom of the pile in all things. Of course they are gonna fight this; I would if in their shoes and it was portrayed in this manner! Now, you can try to talk them out of this until you've got a migraine or - as I do - avoid that angle entirely and instead focus on terms like 'fairness', 'decency' and 'respect' to lead those folks to a position where you can at least avoid making them an enemy. [KarmaPolice]

You're not entirely wrong - mutual decency and respect would be very fine. The problem, I suspect, is that many white Americans are essentially forced to obey a double standard. They are made to feel guilty toward their ethnic heritage and also to feel inhibited or hesitant to advocate in favor of their ethnic self-interest. In the case of America's mass media, "White American" is frequently written off wholesale and explicitly rejected as a valid ethnic identity. The media heaps abuse upon anyone who behaves otherwise. It may seem a trite exercise to compare phrases like "white pride" vis-a-vis "black pride", "asian pride" and so forth, but it demonstrates the point very clearly. One cannot simultaneously appeal to values like mutual respect, fairness, decency, and so forth and still take for granted this warped double standard. Consider also that in most contexts and instances (gender, to give an example), the concept of identity carries large privileges. Others are expected to respect and even humor one's identity. The one exception to all this begins to look very conspicuous and deliberate. It is profoundly irritating. This is the context in which many white Americans receive such lectures about their allegedly backwards and tribal way of thinking. It's therefore a small wonder that some are less than receptive - a disposition that is unlikely to change before these taboos and double standards are deprecated. It is no less legitimate than any other identity or heritage. While this isn't something that I stew over, I can understand why someone might. It is not my prerogative to tell someone how much value they may or should place in their heritage. To do so would be presumptuous and obscene, yet that is how we are so often spoken to or lectured. Hopefully I haven't labored the point too much. Incidentally, I have no idea who or what 'christabels' are. Accumulator (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

While there is some worth in this - 'don't insult/demean/guilt-trip attributes of people they are incapable of changing or attribute to them crimes they never personally committed or benefited from' - much of it is bollocks. But even in it's bollocks, it requires actual thought to reason succinctly why it's bollocks. And the way to do it is to introduce the concept of 'face'.

'Face' is in short, the mask that a person shows the world. But to paraphrase Shakespeare; every person wears many masks. The 'work' mask, the 'friend' mask, the 'relative' mask etc. Children as young as three are capable of lying [and thus, capable of fathoming that others 'can lie back'], most six-year olds can grasp 'situational behaviours' [such as that doing X is okay at home but not at school] and as social creatures, we're kinda hardwired to 'want to be liked' and this usually means 'to go with the crowd' ie fit in with the group, 'be normal'. And we never really escape that, though some of us are more capable of resisting it than others [or have the inclination to].

This is important when you consider what 'normal' is defined as. In Anglo societies such as the UK and USA, this traditionally meant male, white, heterosexual, Christian and 'neurotypical'. If you were all five of these groups, your 'public face' could be so similar to your 'private face' that most weren't even realise that there was much of a division between the two. You could 'be yourself' at work, voice your opinions/views/feelings with relative impunity, safe in the knowledge that 'conventional opinion' agreed with you. If you didn't fit - well, tough shit. Fit in or fuck off. It's why so many black guys resorted to all-over buzzcuts [only style which passed racist hair codes], women who wanted to 'get on' careers-wise used to don shoulder-pads, lower their voice pitch and try to be a bigger ball-breaker [the only acceptable gender for a boss was male], religious/sexual minorities would go to stupid lengths to try to hide it from public knowledge [to appear 'more normal', and thus 'likeable'] and black women were particularly concerned of being 'too black' [and getting pegged into the 'angry black woman' stereotype with negative consequences]. These folks have 'public faces' which are significantly different to their 'private face' - which is why I instantly doubt any claims of being 'a friend' of a minority at work unless you've actually socialised with them properly [and there's no power disparity] and seen their 'personal face' [and they yours].

'Diversity', in the most glib definition of it so recognise the traditional definition of 'normal' as too narrow and crack it open. To make a situation where it was more acceptable to be gay, trans, black, foreign, neurodiverse, non-Christian and so on. To allow those groups 'public face' to become more like their 'private face', so it was less stressful to maintain. A place where Jamal can admit to celebrating Juneteenth and have dreads, Levi feels okay in requesting the office Christmas party omits the religious stuff and Alison doesn't feel she's been shunted onto the 'mommy track' after maternity leave which means her career is effectively now stalled. The downside here being that those who didn't need a public face now do need one - and quick. 'Normal' isn't where they are and 'they' have to move to fit us any more. We now have to move to fit them [somewhat]. We can't say to Jamal we think dreads are ugly/unprofessional, we can't tell Levi to 'suck it up' because of the large Nativity scene in the office or pressure Alison into thinking that if they aren't working 60-hour weeks or alluding to 'any other commitments' in their lives they aren't 'promotion material'. Or telling Adam we think they're a butch girl who cut their tits off and expect to be backed up.

This is why a lot of the 'anti-woke' people come off as cranky, mainly older white guys. They are. The world doesn't constantly validate their views anymore and they've now got to humour 'them' when in Ye Good Old Days 'they' humoured us in all things. That's the thing - they don't realise that Lin really didn't like your Chinese 'jokes' and Sandra thought you were in fact a dirty old creep. They humoured you, now you humour them. Surface civility, keeping your feelings private, respecting them as a fellow human and to quote the Bible - 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. Mutual politeness and respect, avoids blood on the carpet. KarmaPolice (talk) 06:12, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

There's a problem with such calls is that so often the callers don't seem to either spot or care 'how it comes out' at the other end. I remember #MeToo and by the time it had filtered down into 'the ordinary world' a lot of men were talking about it in the vein of 'oh, because women are so fragile and touchy about shit, we have to be super-careful with them now'. What could [and in my opinion, should] have been a call for simple respect and fairness irrespective of the person's genital layout became a paternalistic doling-out of a bit of protection for 'the weaker sex' because they 'couldn't hack it' in the cut and thrust of 'real workplaces' etc. Even worse, because of this language they failed to make common cause to the other shit-on groups [disabled, minorities, LGBT, immigrants] for simple demands of equality of respect and chance. [I know I keep on mentioning #MeToo; it's because it was this which caused my 'final breach' with social progressivism].

Lastly, the other thing where an 'economic justice first' strategy is that as you're giving claws to all poor people so they can fight for their own social justice [because yes, each minority does have some particular issues which are not economic-based] you are also arming the minorities you either did not care about or even really know about. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘so i've noticed some people mentioned global economics and immigration. i think the two go hand-in-hand to an extent, as explained by this half-hour video essay. The G (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I am skeptical that one can divide social issues from economic issues so easily too. Society and economy are really not easily separable things, they are symbiotic processes. Carthage (talk) 07:42, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

US v. Skrmetti

So, I'm sure you know that SCOTUS is about to allow states to ban gender-affirming care for minors soon, no doubt about that. But I am confused, the article linked in WIGO world implies that SCOTUS could go a step further and decree that all gender affirming care is banned for all individuals, regardless of age, nationwide. Is that true? Why didn't they use this same line of logic for Dobbs to grant zygotes personhood to ban Abortion nationwide? That would've saved the forced-birth movement a lot of time & headache. If this Skrmetti shit is true, then it looks like the timeline of eroding human rights is gonna be a lot shorter than anticipated. I am a trans man who can't leave the country due to a criminal record. I've resigned to the fact that I'll likely die soon, either facing the barrels of a firing squad or the clawed-marked metal interior of a gas chamber. At this point I gave up fighting for my rights, I accepted that it's not worth fighting in a world that rejects me for who I am. At this point I am sitting back and enjoying these last few months I have left. SpongeyRobert (talk) 04:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The only reason firing squads exist is because killing a human takes a psycholocical blow on the psyche. Having multiple people take the shot ensures that no single shooter has to take full personal responsibility for taking another human being's life (also sometimes they use blanks except one, thereby making it ambiguous who shot the killing shot.)

Republicans have suffeciently dehumanized the 'other' to the point that I believe that none of them would have qualms about personally killing an 'other' in fact a lot of them seem eager to do so. There won't be any MAGA firing squads. We know Nazis were A-okay shooting people one-by-one into a grave they were forced to dig, and did not suffer psychological effects from hearing people screaming in agony in the gas chambers, simply because they don't believe those are people being murdered. US Republicans have already reached that point. ^{— Unsigned, by: 2001:67c:2628:647:9::6c / talk / contribs}

this is the dorkiest thing I've read in a long time. Nobody hates nerds, geeks are fine, why are you being total dorks? It's fine, it's fun in its own way but man. Do y'all need a group wedding? There are people not doing well, I imagine you haven't thought about that yet. Torrent (talk) 09:33, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The SCOTUS does not have the power to ban gender-affirming care for everyone. That can only be done at the national level, and with the narrow Republican majority in the House and a Senate that is not filibuster-proof, I would expect no such thing. What they do have the power is to "shape narratives" and essentially say states can make this law or can't make this other law. We'll see in the end what the main decision text ends up saying as far as the scope of this goes. (We'll probably also get yet another insane "concurrent opinion" from Clarence Thomas since Ketanji Brown Jackson compared the case to Loving v. Virginia, tee hee.)

In other words, from my perspective, you don't have to leave the country. You just have to, if one can, move out of states addicted to culture war bullshit into more minority rights protecting ones. (Fortunately, in my opinion, most of the states addicted to culture war bullshit are shitholes. Sometimes naturally beautiful shitholes granted, but shitholes nonetheless.) BobJohnson (talk) 15:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes; courts only have power of interpretation of existing laws - they can't simply make new laws on a whim. What's more, the higher 'batshit' rating their interpretation is, the chances of a shout of 'Clarence Thomas has made his decision, now let him enforce it!' rises and there's only so many batshits they can shit out before their very legitimacy becomes hugely compromised with not just large swathes of the Big Public, but even some actual judges and lawyers. Like with Congress and President - I strongly suspect SCOTUS very well might end up going 'too far', mistaking juryrigging and small swings of public opinion to be a 'huge mandate' to 'reshape America'. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

While it is de jure true that ”courts only have power of interpretation of existing laws” and thus ”can't simply make new laws on a whim”, the kind of tortuous (re)interpretation the current SCOTUS applies does indeed de facto amount to what is derisively known as “legislating from the bench”.

The right wing SCOTUS judges obviously don’t care a fig about what the legislation says and have little to no respect for either the legislative or the executive branch if the politics of these branches don’t chime with those of the judges, or if they act in ways the judges don’t like. As long as the judges think they can get away with such “judicial legislation” they have proven that they will apply it.

For instance, I would not be surprised if they decide to resurrect the Comstock Act, despite it being a dead letter for decades, which, in practice, would likely amount to legislating a new national ban on shipping abortifacients and thus in effect amount to a ban on at least medical abortion (which is the most prevalent form).

In addition, such a “Comstock resurrection” could also possibly include a practical ban on contraceptives (because they can’t be shipped either) and might also be used to crack down on whatever these judges consider “obscene” online, as well as in physical format by making physical shipping or online transmission of such material illegal.

The practical difference between such radical “reinterpretation” and actual new legislation is minimal, because the societal effects are largely the exact same. In this regard, it’s also worth noticing that Robert’s in particular likes to play the long game and thus only incrementally whittle away at legislation he doesn’t like in order to keep up some degree of professional judicial facade.

Yes, this specific case is “only” about whether gender affirming care can be legally banned at the state at all, and as such the result would not amount to a national ban. However, if the right wing SCOTUS majority does find such state bans to be constitutional, we have already seen a template in how the next act plays out by what happened in the case of abortion. If, at some later date, the SCOTUS’s right wing majority can find some way to “reinterpret” some federal law to say that it constitutes a ban on such care, I would not be surprised if it did.

However, I think it would be more in line with the SCOTUS ratfuckery, if they end up targeting the drugs needed for gender affirming care, rather than outright banning such care itself. But the end result will basically be the same: Sure, you have the right to a treatment (abortion might very well see this development, if the Comstock Act is resurrected), just a shame you can’t get the drugs needed to actually treat you, because they have either been banned or can’t legally be shipped to you/your provider. ScepticWombat (talk) 04:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't disagree that the Roberts court tries to actively legislate from the bench etc. However, a couple of comments.

A) The specific case involves transgender affirming care, specifically hormones and puberty blockers, for minors. I think it will be tougher to try and do a more generic ban on these drugs; these same drugs are used for quite a number of applications, such as fertility medicine, various (older) age related treatments, and some cancers. There's a little bit of a "dog and pony show" element to the minor hormone therapy bans, because the number of minors currently on hormone treatment is relatively small. Not that these bills aren't obviously bullshit (because there's definitely a few cases where such is needed, of course, and legislatures are trying to override doctors / medicine here) but it's a "safer" target for the culture war assholes to rage on since minor hormone transgender therapy is not terribly common. (Now, as demonstrated with the abortion debate, many culture warrior politicians seem to be total dumbfucks on medicine, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more shithole culture warrior states try to go on a full ban path... and, similar to abortion, accelerate the brain drain of medical professionals out of the shithole state as a result. The "smarter" culture warrior assholes would not do this, though.)

B) A full revival of the Comstock Act would require legislation as well, I believe... which means it won't happen. I also think that signs point to Donald Trump not making the fundie wishlist a priority this time. So... while Trump could fuck up some things abortion wise with executive orders and budget thingies... I'm not sure he would. This does not mean, though, that the Roberts court will not fuck things up abortion care by allowing clearly un-Constitutional anti-abortion state laws to pass muster (such as, from my perspective, Idaho's "abortion travel ban"). It's just another situation where the Democrat led states are not going to back down without a fight. In fact, if the Roberts court *really* goes overboard, I can see this something akin to a Dred Scott situation where some states start actively raising their middle finger towards the Supreme Court and carrying on. Anti-abortion blowhards are a minority after all. BobJohnson (talk) 15:04, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Which I alluded to above: 'Thomas and Roberts have made their decision, now let them enforce it!'. State DAs could refuse to investigate. Jury nullification is a thing - in fact, one of the reasons English law got reformed in the 19th Century was the increasing cases where juries refused to convict on cases they knew carried the death penalty. Judges, even if put in a position where they had to convict someone on an 'odious law' could effectively nullify it themselves by making the punishment paltry to non-existence. State-level politicians could order all LEOs they have control of to not assist investigations regarding it. How much of this is legal? Well, that's for SCOTUS to rule. Now we get to the position where Washington would have to in effect decide whether to force the recalcitrant states into line on this. However, I'm more pessimistic than BobJ on this because it doesn't take a genius to work out that the Venn overlap of 'open defiers of Dominionist SCOTUS' and 'hates the Orange One' is gonna be about 98% and it's quite possible that some swamp-critter in his court slithers up to sat 'this is the time to sweep your enemies out' and 'they're all libruls so they won't actually fight'. And unfortunately, I could see this happening because a lot of MAGA etc don't seem to think 'the left' will ever really fight back for their rights/freedoms [while I think they will].

If the Comstock Act is still on the books, then it is the law. In legal terms, it doesn't matter one jot whether the parts being used were last used last week or last century. Here in Blighty, we've had situations where 'dead letter laws' have had legal necromancy applied to them; off the top of my head there was gay sex [1950s], witchcraft [1940s] and blasphemy [1970s] - and before you say it, the legal principles which led to said necromancy are also in American law. The threat is not 'legislating from the bench' [this happens all the time in Anglo legal systems, it's called case law] but the risk that SCOTUS pulls some blatantly politically-biased decision out of sync with both public opinion and legal precedent and does not really have any decent legal arguments to why they've torn up perhaps decades of case law is in my judgement, very real. Again, this comes down to asking 'does the MAGA SCOTUS have enough self-awareness to not go too far, to not trash their own legitimacy in the eyes of the general public/wider legal system and not fuck off so many that 'SCOTUS reform' becomes a rallying cry in the next election?'

I charge Democrats with legislating laziness on this part. That like Roe/Wade, they relied on a 'mud foundation' of SCOTUS case law rather than putting down a 'concrete foundation' of actual legislation - every Democrat President since then has enjoyed a period of trifecta [though often not long] which means they could have put in, for example a 'backstop provision' of 'rape/incest/unviability' abortion law. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Is it laziness, or is it calculated? Abortion is/was a useful wedge issue to drum up voters. Carthage (talk) 06:51, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

It's the worst of both worlds, Laziness by the Democrats in the face of calling them baby eating, election rigging, gun taking, FEMA camping, absolute villains. They are nonsense arguments, but they have stuck. Ratfucking lasts generations, it's amazing how much longer a disprovable notion lasts on the conservative side, church coffee circles talk nonsense, that was the Falwell gambit and it's still paying off. Torrent (talk) 08:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

One could certainly point to many examples of gun taking, if not baby eating. Accumulator (talk)

I say it was laziness. That they didn't want to put in the effort of fighting the antis, even though in this particular case I believe there would have been enough 'moderate' pro-bumpers who would have been 'convinceable' to support this hypothetical bill [after all, being pro-bump doesn't automatically mean you're a callous fuckwit who thinks all women should be forced to carry to term something which would literally kill you - even the fucking Catholic Church accepts this!]. But this is pure Third Way again; 'never do anything which might give a reason to someone to not vote for you'. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to the tenth amendment the states/people already have the authority to do so. Prohibiting states from making such laws/policies is not among the powers granted to the federal government to begin with. Accumulator (talk) 11:57, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

You're wrong. All sane-ish legal bods say a 'Federal abortion ban' would be a) constitutional and b) override any state legalisation. Therefore, a 'Federal abortion backstop law' would also be equally constitutional and overriding the state level because it's the exact same case but reversed. Only pro-bump biased lawfare types would use your 'Originalist' argument, which I personally respect a bit more if they also accepted the 'right to bear arms' meant 'the right for white men to own a Brown Bess musket or other weapons existing as of 1791' because that's what the authors were thinking of at time of writing.

If such a bill came into law and then SCOTUS struck it down using the above argument, there would be hell to pay. Mainly for them. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

How's that? The amendments are right there in black and white. It's one thing to say something like "the government is capable of doing this in spite of the constitution" or perhaps even "they should do this even though it's unconstitutional", but quite a different thing to condone an obvious falsehood. There's nothing vague or unclear about those amendments. Accumulator (talk) 19:51, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Duh, Supremacy Clause. Fuck loads of case law of SCOTUS upholding that. The only work-around which isn't total batshit is to rule that it's unconstitutional. And that's only partly batshit, and would cause a political shitstorm which I suspect the MAGA court would ultimately not survive.

And stop inserting your comments within others. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:27, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The supremacy clause would only apply to the powers that the federal government is explicitly granted by the constitution. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.", "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The supremacy clause is obviously not a carte blanche provision for the federal government to impose its will upon the states. Accumulator (talk) 02:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The Constitution says whatever the SCOTUS rules it says. That is why 'it said' abortion was a right in the 70s but it wasn't in the 20s. The Federal Government has assumed powers over shit which to an Originalist reading of Da Rules it shouldn't have. You're missing the point; that if a political trifecta has signed a bill into law and SCOTUS waddles in and says 'it's unconstitutional', giving iffy reasoning for this ruling, it has divided on clearly partisan lines and contradicting perhaps centuries of precedent - what, you think all those politicians will hold their heads in shame, peg forgiveness from the court and pledge to never speak of it again? Like fuck they would. A lot of the public would be fucked off too - because it would reek of ideological 'judicial activism'. KarmaPolice (talk) 03:04, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

"what, you think all those politicians will hold their heads in shame, peg forgiveness from the court and pledge to never speak of it again?" No I don't, but they've all taken oaths - if they neglect to uphold the constitution or violate it outright, they commit an act of perfidy. That this has become routine and commonplace is not something I would consider a mitigating factor in their favor. Only courtiers and toadies defend this sort of behavior instead of simply calling it what it is. Accumulator (talk) 04:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe the technical definition to your reply is 'what a load of bollocks'.

Yes, they have taken oaths. So have the SCOTUS judges - two oaths, in fact. What happens if it becomes believed that they have 'committed an act(s) of perfidy' by violating one or both of them? SCOTUS's power rests mainly on it's moral authority - that even when folks have not agreed with the decision, they have 'respected the decision' because they respected the ones making it. But most folks have a breaking point - where someone bellowing 'respect ma authoritah!' and hitting them over the head with the baton of office simply doesn't cut it anymore. One group of folks which reached this point were the American 'Patriots' in the 1770s - some of which were persons who had due to earlier holding of commissions and/or offices had sworn allegiance to George III. Horatio Gates, Arthur St. Clair and Charles Lee are three who clearly 'committed an act of perfidy' by breaking their oath and joining the rebels it's possible that so did George Washington himself. I assume in this case the ones who praised said perfidy were the right type of courtiers and toadies?

In a more general point, it is rather difficult to demand unthinking, unwavering obedience to authority from a people in a land which was born from a rebellion against authority which was perceived as unjust even though it was legal. Where some the rallying cries were 'don't tread on me', 'give me liberty or give me death' and 'I am determined to defend my rights and maintain my freedom or sell my life in the attempt'. The idea that some MAGA-Dominionist clique could organise an 'constitutional coup' by getting SCOTUS to simply make enough rulings to get them into power will result in not only significant civil unrest but also open defiance from a load of officials too - with the latter claiming to be 'loyal to the spirit of the Constitution'. I know you didn't go this far, but this is the thing which really scares me - that all the Dominionists, fascists, rich fuckers and Trump-lovers don't get that 'the libruls' will fight with everything they've got including weapons if pushed into a corner [including some of the officials themselves] as much as if they were pushing them into a corner. That they won't 'go quietly' and let the 'second Revolution happen', as the shithead from the Heritage Foundation said they should when unveiling Project 2025. That no, 'it is legal, SCOTUS says so' won't make them all fall into line regardless of the actual orders or the general 'respect level' of the ones who are saying it.

But back to the actual original point. There are legal ways to deal with a SCOTUS which is wearing their underpants on their head. Justices can be impeached by Congress [citing 'Good Behaviour' clause] or simply 'court-pack' by creating more of them. Either of these wouldn't be too difficult if we have a legally-iffy and clearly partisan SCOTUS repeatedly striking down the ruling trifecta's decisions and legislation. The reason that this system has remained fairly functional over 200 years is because of a level of 'detente' - that neither 'judges' or 'politicians' shall push the other party so hard up against the wall that they feel the need to use the nuclear options. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:39, 13 December 2024 (UTC)