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I CANT BRING MYSELF TO ROLE MY R'S[edit]
I'm from Europe, but unlike other people, I developed the tendency to basically pronounce a non-rolled Spanish r, instead of the same shit everyone else seems to be saying, and I just realised it wasn't normal. I want to pronounce Spanish correctly, however, and due to my accustomed r I just can't. I can't vibrate my tongue, and I can't not use my voice when trying to say r. When I want to get a very clearly defined r: I just pronounce my native r (which is just… an r) in a clear way. I always thought everyone around the world pronounces r like I do, but turns out many just don't. So how do I do this? I'm used to basically pronouncing the Spanish "r" in my native language (and I'm a monitory even there), but not "correctly" in Spanish, not rolled, and I can't stop using my damn neck when trying to pronounce the Spanish one. The double r and the simple r are both absolutely impossible for me. I can't even fathom the idea of making a sound solely with your tongue (isn't it going to break… like how do you just use your tongue? No voice, no lips, just the tongue). 80.187.114.96 (talk) 00:12, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- This would be better asked on the Wikipedia Reference Desk or Reddit, IMO. 143.223.148.63 (talk) 02:49, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Try YouTube.[1] In my Spanish class, which was taught by a native Spanish speaker called it a 'trill', not a 'roll'. When you can say a short sentence with pero and perro, then you've got it: Pero no es un perro. ("But it's not a dog"). Though there is a difference between single and double r sounds, it's rare that the context does not make the meaning obvious even if the pronunciation is bit off. Bongolian (talk) 05:47, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Bongolian Are you an English speaking person? Because I natively (even despite some of my people not doing that) speak what I looked up and found to be the "uvular trill". Basically (call me chauvinistic, idk) when I see the letter "r", I assume the only correct way worldwide of pronouncing it is the uvular trill, this sort of "non-rolled" r, as I see it. English and Asian languages are weird exceptions to me. And, to me, the Spanish basic r and double r are just variants of the "normal" r that are rolled/trilled, but with a different mouth positioning apparently. I probably should change this mentality, but I just CAN'T. My brain categorically REFUSES to comply to any new logic of the letter r. And I can't really stop using my damn voice. I basically never use only my tongue to pronounce a letter, and I am very protective of my tongue… why would I try to put it to pieces by flapping it around? 80.187.114.96 (talk) 11:03, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- "R" is actually pretty complicated. There are at least two (probably more) ways of using it in the UK, and that's before you consider the US. If you get to languages like Russian then you have a back-of-the-throat "R" in addition to the trilled Spanish "R". But every language is almost certainly going to have sounds - both vowels and consonants - which are not present in your native language. It is not uncommon for new speakers to think that there is something "wrong" with the new language in that it requires them to learn these new sounds. I see that it is hard and frustrating for you to make the Spanish "R" - well, you just need to keep at it. (And it won't damage your tongue.)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:25, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Bob M OMG thank you SO MUCH! I finally did it (though with the help of a Spanish-speaking friend who explained to me how to correctly follow the internet instructions (I wasn't following them correctly when it comes to tongue positioning…). Now, I just need to be able to pronounce it in the middle of words (at the beginning of words it's easy, but especially when the simple r is in the middle of a word, I just can’t for now, but it’ll resolve itself anytime, I'm sure). Cheers! 80.187.84.136 (talk) 19:19, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Great. now you jus need to get "ñ" worked out and you are all set.
- In point of fact, I would say that it is much easier for English speakers to learn Spanish pronunciation than it is for Spanish speakers to learn English pronunciation.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:40, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- I got the ñ and double l sounds figured out pretty quickly (with double ll I mean the very quick "jumping" on the letters, like very quick "die" or "dio", with y being that way too but less so. My Latin American friend told me many people have "bad" language use and insisted on teaching me that, so I'm thankful to them). 80.187.102.186 (talk) 16:37, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Bob M OMG thank you SO MUCH! I finally did it (though with the help of a Spanish-speaking friend who explained to me how to correctly follow the internet instructions (I wasn't following them correctly when it comes to tongue positioning…). Now, I just need to be able to pronounce it in the middle of words (at the beginning of words it's easy, but especially when the simple r is in the middle of a word, I just can’t for now, but it’ll resolve itself anytime, I'm sure). Cheers! 80.187.84.136 (talk) 19:19, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- "R" is actually pretty complicated. There are at least two (probably more) ways of using it in the UK, and that's before you consider the US. If you get to languages like Russian then you have a back-of-the-throat "R" in addition to the trilled Spanish "R". But every language is almost certainly going to have sounds - both vowels and consonants - which are not present in your native language. It is not uncommon for new speakers to think that there is something "wrong" with the new language in that it requires them to learn these new sounds. I see that it is hard and frustrating for you to make the Spanish "R" - well, you just need to keep at it. (And it won't damage your tongue.)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:25, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Bongolian Are you an English speaking person? Because I natively (even despite some of my people not doing that) speak what I looked up and found to be the "uvular trill". Basically (call me chauvinistic, idk) when I see the letter "r", I assume the only correct way worldwide of pronouncing it is the uvular trill, this sort of "non-rolled" r, as I see it. English and Asian languages are weird exceptions to me. And, to me, the Spanish basic r and double r are just variants of the "normal" r that are rolled/trilled, but with a different mouth positioning apparently. I probably should change this mentality, but I just CAN'T. My brain categorically REFUSES to comply to any new logic of the letter r. And I can't really stop using my damn voice. I basically never use only my tongue to pronounce a letter, and I am very protective of my tongue… why would I try to put it to pieces by flapping it around? 80.187.114.96 (talk) 11:03, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Try YouTube.[1] In my Spanish class, which was taught by a native Spanish speaker called it a 'trill', not a 'roll'. When you can say a short sentence with pero and perro, then you've got it: Pero no es un perro. ("But it's not a dog"). Though there is a difference between single and double r sounds, it's rare that the context does not make the meaning obvious even if the pronunciation is bit off. Bongolian (talk) 05:47, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Throat rolled "r"; try making the khkhkh sound in your throat like you are preparing to spit. Then relax your throat while doing it, and make the vocative sound (the difference between P and B or G and C)
- Front rolled "r"; you'll make a D sound, but stiffen all but the tip of your tongue. Go for something like the word "droll" if it was pronounced with a hard D instead of "jroll". It's ok to be forceful at first, you'll relax as you learn. CorruptUser 19:52, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- And then there are the 'rs' of the Mac the Knife song in the 1931 film version of Der Dreigroschenoper. (Available on YT and elsewhere) Anna Livia (talk) 23:05, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
Trump boat massacre[edit]
So recently Trump ordered an apparently illegal strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat. However, Venezuela alleges that the video of the strike in question was actually a deepfake. So, what's more pathetic? Bragging about committing a war crime, or bragging about committing a war crime you didn't actually commit? Antares (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- There are at least some hints (nothing 100 percent confirmed) that Venezuela is actually becoming a narco-state[2] and their government is known for its own cosnpiracies. I'm not saying that Trump is telling the truth, but I wouldn't be surprised if Maduro is in fact the one that is actually lying. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 15:08, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, neither party here is a reliable narrator. The Trump regime, for its part, has changed its narrative about the strike at least twice now. Antares (talk) 15:11, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Indeed, if one side is obviously "bad" it does not necessarily make the other side "good".Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:19, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- FWIW, the BBC doesn't think that the deepfake claim holds any merit. Antares (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- I have heard some reliable experts in relevant areas of the law say that the attack was not justified (e.g., law of the sea pertains in international water, no indication that the boat was armed, drug smuggling is not a capital offense, the boat did not attack first), and amounts to state-sponsored murder. Bongolian (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- FWIW, the BBC doesn't think that the deepfake claim holds any merit. Antares (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Indeed, if one side is obviously "bad" it does not necessarily make the other side "good".Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:19, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, neither party here is a reliable narrator. The Trump regime, for its part, has changed its narrative about the strike at least twice now. Antares (talk) 15:11, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
Gun Rights in the Industrialized World[edit]
In 1800, there was no ATF, or background checks, or anything remotely close to the regulations we have now. Guns were in nearly every household. Yet, gun crimes were more rare than today*. What did they have figured out that we didn't?
I suggest there's a different reason; Industrialization.
No, not Urbanization or anything like that, just the price of guns.
In 1800, a rifle would cost $200 in nominal dollars, in a time when skilled craftsmen were being paid $1/day. This meant that a middle class worker would need to save for years to purchase their rifle, kind of like buying a car. And if you weren't a skilled worker? It'd take even longer. So you had a system where people could only get firearms after already establishing their career and possibly their families, after they were already past the peak crime ages.
Today, we manufacture guns in massive factories for cheap; you can get a rifle for as low as $400, and cheaper for a handgun. You could purchase a gun with your very first paycheck from working a minimum wage job, without ever having established a career or skillset, before you are even out of high school. In this regard, the young and/or poor now have similar access to firearms that once required being middle class and/or adult. So it really shouldn't be surprising that gun crimes have become more common.
So my question becomes, how do we
- Return gun crime levels to a lower rate
- Allow honest, upright citizens to continue owning firearms
- Allow young, poor people to have same/similar rights/opportunities as the middle class
- The murder rate was much higher in 1800, but when you factor in modern medical care turning most murder cases into either assault or attempted murder, we actually have far more violence today than in colonial times
CorruptUser 17:55, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- In many other countries of a comparable economic-social level to the US the number of major gun-crime incidents is *far less than the US* and far more newsworthy; some are politically inspired or done by 'the nutters.' (Crossbows, black-powder and other weapons are very minor) A measure of gun control is accepted.
- It may be what is reported in the news - but the number of incidents in the US seems to be much higher than in the past. Anna Livia (talk) 18:32, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding guns, the problem currently for the United States *specifically* is that guns have become both a proxy for paranoia instead of a tool (gotta scare you so you can buy more guns!) and a symbol of masochism identity (not just the NRA type, the gangbangers tooo). Big cultural issues there.
- It's difficult to say how to fix this. Industrialization, yes, but I see the massively stupid amount of guns America has as a sign of consumerism specifically. In the music world, there's something called "gear acquisition syndrome" for folks who seem to spend more time acquiring shiny new music toys than actually making music. Likewise, "gun acquisition syndrome" seems to be a part of certain corners of gun culture. Welcome to American capitalism... gotta spend your paycheck, now!
- The above unfortunately prevents a sensible conversation to be had on "what guns should be for military / police, and what should be for civilians"? Most industrial nations tend to regulate (in some form) automated gun features more than the United States. Partially because yes, it's cheap to get massive amounts of firepower. Bad when derps acquire it to mass shoot for whatever reason, bad too for the criminals that use these for whatever reason. Even the United States has *some* regulation -- machine guns were "banned" (read: heavily regulated actually) after the Prohibition era, because apparently "gangs use these guns, folks" was a message that worked then, but not now. But, gun manufacturers gotta sell their guns... so here we are.
- The full answer to "return gun crime levels to a lower rate" IMHO lies with improving the United States policing overall, though. (Not really a gun thing fully, maybe a little but not as a whole.) There may be other factors, too. Homicide per capita if I recall actually peaked in the 1970s; the lead-crime hypothesis here suggests that even something as simple as environmental factors can contribute to homicide rates. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 18:40, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- Another historical factor is the increasing lethality of guns: musket (ball and powder) < rifles/handguns with premanufactured bullets < revolvers < automatic/semi-automatic weapons < metal jacketed bullets. Even the decades-old US national ban on fully-automatic weapons has become quite weak, now that there are known ways of turning semi-automatic weapons into fully-automatic weapons. UK and Australia were able to clamp down on gun culture, so superficially, it would seem to be not insurmountable for the US to do so. I don't have much hope for that anytime soon due to the cultural divide that has persisted since the beginning of the nation. Bongolian (talk) 20:07, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- The gun that gets most of the attention, the AR-15, was invented nearly 70 years ago. Guns haven't really gotten much deadlier since then. They've gotten lighter, which is another huge issue because child soldiers, but not really deadlier.
- But going back to my OP, how do we reintroduce the "filter" we once had on keeping guns away from irresponsible people, without basically codifying some sort of classism or other bigotries into our legal system? CorruptUser 02:45, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- I would point out that in most of the "industrialized world" it's pretty difficult to get hold of a gun. The US is somewhat of an outlier.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:44, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- I think one of the issues with American 'gun control' is that the 'anti' stock answer is primarily a technocratic one; 'ban assault weapons', 'magazine limiters', 'licencing' etc which side-steps the true crux of the issue - America has violence and anger issues. That while the BoN is right in pointing out the fetishisation of guns [GAS exists in my experience in every hobby I've ever seen from fitness to home baking] but the truth is that even if every American civilian gun rusted up overnight you'd just end up seeing loads of people attacking others with blades, bats, crossbows etc. Why? My two pence worth...
- Another historical factor is the increasing lethality of guns: musket (ball and powder) < rifles/handguns with premanufactured bullets < revolvers < automatic/semi-automatic weapons < metal jacketed bullets. Even the decades-old US national ban on fully-automatic weapons has become quite weak, now that there are known ways of turning semi-automatic weapons into fully-automatic weapons. UK and Australia were able to clamp down on gun culture, so superficially, it would seem to be not insurmountable for the US to do so. I don't have much hope for that anytime soon due to the cultural divide that has persisted since the beginning of the nation. Bongolian (talk) 20:07, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
- 1/Mental health crisis. Anger. Paranoia. Depression. Extreme stress. Poorly/non-treated disorders. Millions of Americans 'losing the plot' in a myriad of ways, then deciding that Weapon Of Gun is 'the solution'. Shooting the fuckers who 'made your life hell'. Or just yourself.
- 2/Drug/alcohol crisis. Often related to previous.
- 3/Societal stresses. Unemployment. Ill health. Poor/no housing. Even the most stable of mental foundations can crumble over decades of carrying a ton of stress/worry on your back [qv: Falling Down].
- 4/Owner irresponsibility. How many mass shootings was done by someone stealing a legal weapon from someone they know? Why the fuck wasn't those weapons locked away? But no, the 'ma fweedom' extremists shoot down any suggestion that they should be legally made to keep their pieces secure. They are harlots - demanding power [of gun] without any damn responsibility.
- Gun violence is a symptom of a sick America, not the cause. Treat the true causes and they will rapidly decline in number. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:59, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- There is certainly an enormous difference between between most European countries and most US states as the map shows. For all the social differences, it is difficult from a European perspective, to imagine that the allegedly easy availability of firearms in the US is not at least partly involved.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:35, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- Aye, the availability of firearms makes it easier to maim/kill so will capture some folks who'll balk at personally sticking with a blade but not simply pointing and pressing. As well as reducing mass shooter events. But I stand by my previous logic. Plus, we all know reducing guns is a political non starter.
- Gun violence is a symptom of a sick America, not the cause. Treat the true causes and they will rapidly decline in number. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:59, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- Lastly, there are voices 'on the left' who are arguing (with some justification) that the rise of the New Order means it's time for us to arm up. And in a classic authoritarian move, Orange One wants to ban owners of a minority he hates. What minority is going to be the next to be disarmed, eh? And no, you instantly exclude yourself from the debate of you say 'that can't happen here'. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:02, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- The thing is: when I compare List of countries by intentional homicide rate
vs. Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country
... my casual observation suggests that poverty and inequality are far better predictors of homicide than gun ownership in itself. (I don't doubt that the ease of access of firearms in America causes issues, it's just not the only thing going on here.)
- Googling around, I found this document from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. This suggests the following factors for higher homicide:
- Development levels -- the lower the development level, the higher the homicide rate.
- Large young male populations, especially for those with low education and high unemployment rates. Criminal gang activity is attractive in this environment.
- Income inequality -- the higher the inequality, the higher the homicide rate.
- Gender inequality -- the higher the inequality, the higher the homicide rate.
- Legal weakness. A strong security and justice system that respects human rights. Weaker law leads to higher homicide rates.
- Many of these are uneven patterns. But, in general, the pattern seems right. Give young men good jobs, a solid background to succeed, and the ethos to temper the worst of the macho animal instinct... you'll see less homicides. If you wreck schools... turn the rule of law into a corrupt farce... have a society that benefits only an Elite Few... have Taliban like views of women... and have a large amount of angry young men... you get gun violence.
- While this only covers homicides, I bet tackling the above factors would help a lot of other aspects of crime.
- The thing is, compared to some developing countries, America's crime rate is not that bad. America stands out among "rich" countries, though. My "armchair guess" is that the biggest factor of the above that applies to America is inequality (which leads to many of KP's social ills). A secondary guess would be the elements of American law infected by systematic racism/classism etc... America tends to have "strong" law (we arrest lots of people!) that nonetheless is not as well trained as it could be, and also has a lot of "rules for thee not for me" elements. The later weakens American law considerably.
- Fix these things, and you'll probably fix a heck of a lot of crime (easier said than done I know). Of course, it doesn't help the situation when the ruling class loves to exploit racism etc. to get votes, reinforcing both the "inequality" and the "uneven law" elements. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 15:03, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- I (for one) and not arguing that guns are the single source of America's bizarre murder statistics. For one thing there are (almost) always multiple causes for any social situation and for another there are other countries with equal or higher rates of gun ownership. Nevertheless - and I don't think anyone is arguing with this - having a shitload of guns on top of whatever other problems the US has does not seem to be helpful.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:27, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- @KP, with regard to the alcohol/drug crisis, federal law already makes it illegal for illicit drug users to own a firearm, though the same is not true of alcoholics. Given that 50% of homicides involve either the murderer or victim being drunk, that's worth an update, maybe we could treat drunk gun-wielders the same we treat drunk drivers? I don't know exactly.
- Back to my original question, what's the best way to replicate the 19th century's filter of "must be the type of person capable of holding a steady job for years to own a gun", without either trampling on the rights of honest citizens or enshrining inequality into the law?
- There're obviously more than one possibility, I'm thinking something like "if the military would reject you, no gun". CorruptUser 22:03, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- So people who have asthma, diabetes, or flat feet should not be allowed to own a gun?2001:67C:2628:647:32:804:0:162 (talk) 03:10, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
- Flat flooted people are allowed in the army, but I was thinking more like "failed the psych eval", not "too old". Like I said, I just want something that brings back the equivalent of "responsible adult that's well integrated into society" without codifying a class system based purely on wealth, sex, race, etc. CorruptUser 03:57, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
- So people who have asthma, diabetes, or flat feet should not be allowed to own a gun?2001:67C:2628:647:32:804:0:162 (talk) 03:10, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
- I (for one) and not arguing that guns are the single source of America's bizarre murder statistics. For one thing there are (almost) always multiple causes for any social situation and for another there are other countries with equal or higher rates of gun ownership. Nevertheless - and I don't think anyone is arguing with this - having a shitload of guns on top of whatever other problems the US has does not seem to be helpful.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:27, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- The thing is: when I compare List of countries by intentional homicide rate
- Lastly, there are voices 'on the left' who are arguing (with some justification) that the rise of the New Order means it's time for us to arm up. And in a classic authoritarian move, Orange One wants to ban owners of a minority he hates. What minority is going to be the next to be disarmed, eh? And no, you instantly exclude yourself from the debate of you say 'that can't happen here'. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:02, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
- -I think we need to differentiate crimes involving guns and crimes caused by guns. I think drugs is an excellent example; they use guns as they are there -they'd still deal even if they didn't (qv UK). Our higher knife crimes can be seen as 'frustrated gun crime'.
- -'Oh but that's illegal' is a pathetic and stupid answer. But more importantly, America has no registers to look at, it does not deal with pieces not from a proper retailer, does not answer if they bought them 'before' and due to the supreme shittiness of your health system many millions go undiagnosed/treated. Result - the law it almost pointless.
- -Yes, 'being incapable with a firearm' should be a crime. And a quick check tells me it is in many places in America. This is where propaganda and peer pressure comes in - to encourage responsible gun ownership, similar to how drunk driving became both socially unacceptable and where folks would confiscate their keys etc.
- -In an ideal world, having gun licences would be a good start. Every 2/3 years, you reapply and after a quick medical and a couple vouching for you you're go in and do the mandatory gun safety course, reminding you as a responsible citizen you must keep your pieces secure etc. I would also put it into law that if someone steals your piece for a crime, you're liable too unless you can prove you were responsible re storage. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:45, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
- There is also a cultural issue (or several) - if most people consider 'guns (and crossbows, black powder weapons etc) are to be used in particular contexts (military, some police in some contexts, target practice, certain hunting, 'dis-armed if historical etc) by suitable persons (and (great-)grandfather's WWII weapon is kept in the attic and not mentioned) there will be much lower rates of weapon-related-violence than 'do them Yanks have Freudian-substitute issue?' Having shooter drills in schools ('and they do nowt about it' is seen as wrong on many levels inlarege parts of the rest of the world. Anna Livia (talk) 15:53, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- -In an ideal world, having gun licences would be a good start. Every 2/3 years, you reapply and after a quick medical and a couple vouching for you you're go in and do the mandatory gun safety course, reminding you as a responsible citizen you must keep your pieces secure etc. I would also put it into law that if someone steals your piece for a crime, you're liable too unless you can prove you were responsible re storage. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:45, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Our AI spambot friends[edit]
See RationalWiki:Technical_support#the_AI_spambots_again - David Gerard (talk) 17:29, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
French edition rename[edit]
Hello, I recently started a translation of templates (notably navigation sidebars) in French, and chose to call the wiki RationnelWiki in the French translations. I wanted to ask for permission to change RationalWiki to RationnelWiki elsewhere on French articles (including moving the page RationalWiki (français) to RationnelWiki. Also wanted to ask if I had the right to create my own template categories (already created Category:Modèles de barres de navigation for my French sidebars). Avionfoudingue (talk) 03:33, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
- "RationnelWiki" sounds a little weird. How about "WikiRationnel" or "RationalismeWiki"? New world (talk) 11:33, 6 September 2025 (UTC)


- @Avionfoudingue As a French speaking moderator and Board member, I expressly forbid you from unilaterally changing the name of RationalWiki in French. It is called RationalWiki in French, English and every other language written in the Latin alphabet. End of. Spud (talk) 12:28, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Pedantic point of order; if you're speaking as a Board member, surely you should be putting on your Board hat [tricorn?] instead? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:56, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- @KarmaPolice If there were such a template, I would have used it.Spud (talk) 11:11, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Pedantic point of order; if you're speaking as a Board member, surely you should be putting on your Board hat [tricorn?] instead? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:56, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Avionfoudingue As a French speaking moderator and Board member, I expressly forbid you from unilaterally changing the name of RationalWiki in French. It is called RationalWiki in French, English and every other language written in the Latin alphabet. End of. Spud (talk) 12:28, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
Anthropic's grand copyright theft proposed settlement[edit]
You may have heard that the generative AI company agreed to a settlement of a $1.5 billion total payment to authors that it stole copyrighted works from (it sounds like a lot but it's a drop in the bucket for these AI companies). The settlement still needs to be approved by the judge in the case. The settlement would work out to more than $3000 per author, which is substantial for potential beneficiaries given that many authors make very little from their books and because the proposed settlement appears to include "works", which means both books and journal articles are included. Most academic journal authors make $0 from their publication and no longer hold copyright once the article is published. If you've ever published a book, a book chapter, or a journal article. It's worth checking if you might be included in the lawsuit. The Atlantic has a database of works that were stolen, which is searchable by author.[3] If you find yourself there, the litigating law firm has a sign-up form for potential beneficiaries (i.e., potential class action members).[4] I was in the database for an obscure publication, for which I do not hold copyright. @David Gerard is in the database for two of his books. Bongolian (talk) 18:32, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
is it ethical to be a billionaire/ have billion dollars? etc[edit]
I’m curious to know what is the consensus on this topic is currently from this community. Ive been out of the loop for a while and have come across videos that make me ponder the question.Senxaur 13:16, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- There is no ethical way to make a billion dollars. Antares (talk) 13:08, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- I'm skeptical about the existence of a transcendental ethic. My opinion is that it depends on how the money was acquired (and I don't know the most common way to acquire a billion).
- If someone's fortune was acquired through political capture, crime, and rent-seeking, it's clearly unjust. On the other hand, if someone acquired their fortune in a, let's say (I hate that word) "meritocratic" way, that is, by providing goods and services that the population decided to pay for, I don't see any injustice (see my Essay:Greatest_economists_of_all_time#25_John_Bates_Clark), because they became rich by the choice of other people, who decided to give their money to them. There is still at least one more way to become a billionaire: inheritance. This is probably the most controversial of the three. I don't have the time or patience to write about it.
- It's also important to keep in mind that "just" doesn't necessarily mean good. For a long time, economists believed there was a trade-off between equality and efficiency, which would partly explain, for example, why Americans, despite being richer than Europeans, were becoming even richer, even if the catch-up effect
predicted that Europe should be growing faster. The trade-off probably exists, but it is far more controversial than previously thought when Arthur Okun wrote his book decades ago, with new studies arguing that inequality generates, for instance, political instability, which affects economic growth in the long-term. The cause of this instability is still unclear as far as I know. If it is caused primarily by envy and not by the rent-seeking mentioned above, it is perhaps fair to say that such instability would not be unethical.
- It's also important to keep in mind that "just" doesn't necessarily mean good. For a long time, economists believed there was a trade-off between equality and efficiency, which would partly explain, for example, why Americans, despite being richer than Europeans, were becoming even richer, even if the catch-up effect
- Finally, I would like to recommend an article, Mankiw's Defending the One Percent [5] and Stiglitz's book, The Price of Inequality, which address both sides of the debate. A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy State and Utopia by Robert Nozick are also interesting reads on the subject, even if I don't like these two books as much as used to. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:24, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- Becoming a billionaire involves some degree of exploitation somewhere along the line, which I consider to be inherently unethical. The billionaire running Amazon isn't the one actually delivering the packages and manning the warehouses, he just makes bank off their underpaid labor. The very existence of billionaires is itself offensive too. Elon Musk could give away most of his money and still be a wealthy man. The sheer inequality this implies is obscene. Antares (talk) 13:36, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- Is capitalism inherently unethical?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:47, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- (EC) I don't think that giving people jobs is unethical. There is, of course, a power imbalance between employers and employees, but institutions that protect the second group already exist. We don't live in the 19th century anymore. The relationship between employers and employees is much more blurred today, with both sides profiting from it. Saying that a group is "underpaid" is very difficult, you can see again my entry on J. B. Clark. As I said before quite a few times, there is indeed a strong case for a much higher minimum wage in the US.[6] Maybe there is also a case for better regulations due to the risks that some workers face, I don't know. But saying that there is some sort of exploitation in a mathematical sense is much harder. The rest of your argument was already answered in my first post. If you don't like how these people get rich (here we're assuming that they belong to the second group that I mentioned, which isn't truth as far as I know) then you can blame people for buying goods from Amazon. They would still be extremely rich even if their employees earned much more, don't you agree? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:51, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- For the record, as I said many times before, I do think think that the rich should pay more taxes, and these taxes should be used to provide goods for the poor. That's, in my opinion, a good way way to fight inequality. But that doesn't make labor relationships exploitative, and it isn't a good case against billionaires. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:58, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- (EC) Putting it in another way. Do you think that Amazon's workforce would be better of without Amazon? We well never know for sure since we can ask Amazon to stop working and check how their former workers would fare, but usually people choose the best jobs available to them. If you want to improve their condition, giving them education, for instance, seems a better way. Whether we like it or not, the reason why people often choose their jobs, is because they can't find better ones. Also, I did say that there is a power imbalance, right? I didn't read your paper, but I think it is compatible with my argument based on the abstract. Apparently, they are talking about South Africa (a much poorer nation than the US and Europe), so maybe there these power imbalances still resemble 19th century capitalism much more. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:16, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- Oh, wait. You removed the link to the paper. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:16, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- (EC) Putting it in another way. Do you think that Amazon's workforce would be better of without Amazon? We well never know for sure since we can ask Amazon to stop working and check how their former workers would fare, but usually people choose the best jobs available to them. If you want to improve their condition, giving them education, for instance, seems a better way. Whether we like it or not, the reason why people often choose their jobs, is because they can't find better ones. Also, I did say that there is a power imbalance, right? I didn't read your paper, but I think it is compatible with my argument based on the abstract. Apparently, they are talking about South Africa (a much poorer nation than the US and Europe), so maybe there these power imbalances still resemble 19th century capitalism much more. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:16, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- For the record, as I said many times before, I do think think that the rich should pay more taxes, and these taxes should be used to provide goods for the poor. That's, in my opinion, a good way way to fight inequality. But that doesn't make labor relationships exploitative, and it isn't a good case against billionaires. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:58, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- Becoming a billionaire involves some degree of exploitation somewhere along the line, which I consider to be inherently unethical. The billionaire running Amazon isn't the one actually delivering the packages and manning the warehouses, he just makes bank off their underpaid labor. The very existence of billionaires is itself offensive too. Elon Musk could give away most of his money and still be a wealthy man. The sheer inequality this implies is obscene. Antares (talk) 13:36, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- Finally, I would like to recommend an article, Mankiw's Defending the One Percent [5] and Stiglitz's book, The Price of Inequality, which address both sides of the debate. A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy State and Utopia by Robert Nozick are also interesting reads on the subject, even if I don't like these two books as much as used to. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:24, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
Ok. For the record, I don't think that your argument is weak this time. Capitalism can be exploitative and it often is, but I think that this problem can be fixed, and ditching all billionaires doesn't seem to be the best solution. Disputing the ethics of the modern market economy is much easier than disputing its efficiency (even if the latter can also be done with good arguments, of course). GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:24, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- All economic systems are 'exploitative' in the respect labour never gets 100% output from their labour. Some will need to be sliced off, if only for the capital fund for future investment, to support the retired workers, the sick etc. But folks don't see it this way normally - that it's only 'exploitative' if someone take an unfair slice. And that's where the debate comes in (when a fair slice becomes unfair).
- I will argue that it is almost impossible to earn 'fairly' a billion dollars. The chances of you being able to earn that much via labour alone is incredibly small which means our billionaire is mainly ear ning via holding of capital assets. Which most likely shall be administered via your behalf by faceless managers who shall be motivated to squeeze your RoR to be as high as possible (qv 'Jacksons Arm's, The Iron Heel). KarmaPolice (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- Billionaires are to me more of a "symptom".
- I would argue, personally, that there have been some billionaires that are not any more exploitative than anyone else in the capitalism system. The large money came from a combination of (usually) novelty, hard work, and luck. In many cases there really was some true innovation going on. Yes, now in these enshitified times, there are issues. But much of them are due to the natural issues present in monopolies, which many of these billionaire owned companies are. (If we're going to reach for "good old days" yearns like MAGA does, why not "Make Trust-Busting Great Again?")
- Still, having an economic system that creates such a wide disparity between entrepreneur and ordinary worker however creates significant problems even with the innovation going on. So from my point of view, I'd rather focus on the disparity than focus on the net worth number.
- Presently in the US, the "high money class" has an outsized influence in political discourse, which is a big net negative. This is especially notable when said class produces propaganda promoting their interests, and especially if the propaganda is anti-science or bullshit economics. This was most famously seen with climate change denialism, which was rather obviously fueled by fossil fuel interests. Likewise, there is a direct correlation between the anti-vaccination movement and the US "wellness industry", which is now of a size -- ~$2 trillion -- far greater than legitimate R&D. The present anti-democratic kleptocracy musings of the money class are merely the natural conclusion of a class of people that are getting further and further disconnected from the "ordinary folk".
- The other problem is, the vehicle that produces this wealth -- the markets -- has become... shall we say... far more "speculative" and "casino like". Much of the *really* predatory industries that produce billionaires can be found in this sector; there may be innovation, but it's often of a "playing with numbers" variety that is of little use for the "ordinary folk". The wingnut welfare circuit producing high-money-class propaganda tried to obfuscate this, but it was this "casino-ization" of the real estate market that directly caused the Great Recession.
The financial industry is an important component of business, but I do share the Paul Krugman point of view that the number-juggling gambling portion, the one that got the big salaries, contributed much to inequality but little to the economy of the "ordinary folk". Today, we're seeing the end-game of this with cryptocurrency, a "fine tulip"
that, speculative nature aside, has proven to be a very attractive vehicle for the criminal element but is of zero use for the corner store.
- So, from my point of view, it seems to me like much of the "billionaire problem" would be corrected via a more progressive tax system and more financial regulation to taper the "casino" elements. I'm sure the wingnut welfare nuts will moan about those things, of course... 47.197.76.134 (talk) 16:35, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- 'As they say' - whether you have 'enough money' or a billion dollars/other currency you can still live only in the present, eat one meal and wear one set of clothing at a time: sometimes the billionaireship lasts only until others enter the industry or the value is largely notional. (How much are the UK Royal Castles and the Crown jewels actually 'worth', and could the monarch sell them even if not constrained?)
- There is also Veblen's Conspicuous consumption - if you have much money you are expected to spend/donate etc (whereas we ordinary people are free to choose.
- The most ethical way of being a billionaire - acquire some hyperinflation currency/stamps (but the actual users of the money at the time did suffer) Anna Livia (talk) 20:07, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- I take issue with the idea that billionaires are just a symptom. Billionaires bought red state legislatures to pass anti-union ("right-to-work laws"). Labor unions and labor rights are fundamental to functioning democracies, and billionaires of the entrepreneurial ilk are uniformly opposed to unions. Entrepreneurialship is often built upon various types of theft (stolen ideas, patents, or shoved-out founders). It's true that some billionaires are worse than others, but it seems that the more money one has, the more money one wants — and at any cost to others. Once there is a critical mass of billionaires, the oligarchy is formed and along with it economic inequality, opposition to democracy, and support for strongman rule that will keep them eternally in the comfort which they think they deserve. Category:Oligarchic escapes and paranoia are other symptoms of billionaires. Howard Lutnick,
currently Secretary of Commerce under the big rump, is an interesting case-in-point: mentored by the founder of Cantor Fitzgerald, had himself promoted to partner after the founder died, kicked out founder's family and installed himself as owner, wouldn't pay the families of his staff who were killed in the 9-11 attacks (even though his company Cantor Fitzgerald was merrily trading stocks throughout 9-11). Several scoundrels became billionaires after betting on the misery of others (credit default swaps) during the 2008 financial crisis. How did the crisis begin? Billionaires paid some lobbyists and Congressional reps to deregulate. Bongolian (talk) 04:49, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
- I am sure that billionaires will do all they can to rig the system to make themselves "better" billionaires.
- But isn't there a problem with this process? Wealth acquisition is to an extent a zero sum game. While wealth may be being created by some mechanisms I'm betting that it's not being created at the same rate that it's being hovered up by the mega-rich. If so, as they continue to get richer the poor, do indeed, get poorer.
- Then, at some point, there will be no one around with the money to buy iPhone's from Amazon or electric vehicles from megalomaniacs. When all the wealth is held by the top 10 percent or even the top one percent - won't the system break?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:38, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Bob M I don't think that's actually happening. Check The Elephant Curve
if you want to see some evidence against the "zero-sum" argument. Some people think that Thomas Piketty's conclusions on his book on his The Capital in the 21st Century (i.e. the r > g dynamic causes wealth to grow faster than the economy, concentrating capital in the hands of a few) means that the rich are squeezing out the poor, but I think that he actually meant that the gap is widening, not that the economy is a zero sum game, but this conclusion has been disputed too.[7][8]
- The diagnosis that concentrate too much wealth leada to power and that this can distort the market system is something that even diehard libertarian economists studied, such as George Stigler and regulatory capture and James M. Buchanan and rent seeking. I don't think that their solutions would work very well to solve the issue, but they are still better than what most of the mainstream right seems to believe today. Turns out that being pro-market means being antibusiness too (I give all my Internet money to anyone finding a single quote of Adam Smith supporting businessman). GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 10:36, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
- Having said that, I would say that "the system" has indeed broken twice in American history, through these extremely rough timelines:
- A) At the end of the Gilded Age, for various reasons, the go-go capitalist mood broke. This led to the OG Progressive Era.
- B) At the end of the Roaring Twenties, for various reasons, the go-go capitalist mood also broke due to the Great Depression. World War II European fascism shenanigans then helped further neuter the fascist shenanigans of the American business bigwigs.
- I would say that the former is probably more comparable to the current climate than the later. We have a new shiny thing (information technology) that is producing comparable bubbles, busts, and oligarchs. Just like the new shiny thing back then, railroads. Finance (outside regulated boring areas, which thankfully do exist today) is getting awfully shaky now, just as it was then. And, just like then, politicians increasingly look bought and are serving corporate / oligarch interests, not of the people. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 12:37, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Bob M I don't think that's actually happening. Check The Elephant Curve
- I take issue with the idea that billionaires are just a symptom. Billionaires bought red state legislatures to pass anti-union ("right-to-work laws"). Labor unions and labor rights are fundamental to functioning democracies, and billionaires of the entrepreneurial ilk are uniformly opposed to unions. Entrepreneurialship is often built upon various types of theft (stolen ideas, patents, or shoved-out founders). It's true that some billionaires are worse than others, but it seems that the more money one has, the more money one wants — and at any cost to others. Once there is a critical mass of billionaires, the oligarchy is formed and along with it economic inequality, opposition to democracy, and support for strongman rule that will keep them eternally in the comfort which they think they deserve. Category:Oligarchic escapes and paranoia are other symptoms of billionaires. Howard Lutnick,
- The most ethical way of being a billionaire - acquire some hyperinflation currency/stamps (but the actual users of the money at the time did suffer) Anna Livia (talk) 20:07, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
- I think folks are missing the real point of the issue; that this is a discussion regarding ethics. Now, if we accept the premise that 'money' is a kind of ration-ticket for resources and to some extent the amount of money in the economy is a finite sum [so a loose 'zero-sum game'] a billionaire is clearly holding a fuck-ton of ration-tickets in a society where a lot of people could really do with some more tickets. Now, it's argued that the billionaire helps in this by investing their ton of tickets into the production of more tickets, but this is at least partly obsolete; we no longer live in a 'ticket-short' world where the 1%'ers wallet was the main source of investment tickets. Even more importantly, a lot of those investment tickets go into either 'store of wealth' and/or 'rent-seeking' activities [real estate, stock market, IP, M&As, crony capitalism etc] which not only does not help in the increase of tickets being produced in 'the real world' but can hurt society by inflating the prices of stuff both people and business actually need [for example, property] as well as keeping the poor in that position by denying sufficient resources to be able to possibly bootstrap themselves upwards.
- Therefore, I will argue that unless proven explicitly otherwise, the top 1% are a net drain on the general economy. So this leads to the question; how much is 'too much'?
- Now, each country would have a different rating, but my rating for the USA is the absolute top limit of $20m. That this guarantees not just a upper-middle lifestyle for a couple in retirement and real estate/physical assets of about 1m [main home plus vacation home and furnishings] but also enough wealth to 'set up the kids/grandkids for life' [which I consider a natural desire] - that is private education, fully-paid college, a 400-500k home and a trust fund which would provide an modest eternal safety net for each.
- Anything more is just plain unnecessary. That once you go over a certain point in anything, money cannot buy more quality - they're just Veblen goods. That the law of diminishing returns always kicks in; difference between a £10 steak and a £25 is out of this world, the 25 to 50 considerable but less and so on to the point there is almost nil increase between a £100 one and the £600 one at the Savoy. But that's the point; you go to the Savoy not because it's '100% worth it' food/service/decor etc but because it appeals to the inner snob, that we can say 'we dined at the Savoy'. Art is similar; I love the painting 'The Boulevard Montmartre at Night'; I have a full-size print on my wall. Cost £200, all told. The original would cost me perhaps 10m. I'd enjoy the original more, but not 50k times more.
- But the truth is; those who go past the 'that's enough' limit by their own actions are usually driven by a combination of egotism and megalomania; that if they cannot personally live forever, they want to build a damn dynasty. That they want their names to join the podium of 'old money plutocrats', perhaps with half an eye on that most supreme of examples; the old British aristocracy [quite a few can trace their 'wealth lines' all the way back into the mediaeval mists]. But they know all about the 'Three Generation curse' and other examples of plutocrats who lost their wealth or just found it diluted to nothing down the line. Which in real terms means trying to rake up as big a fucking pile as physically possible, stashing it in as many different places as possible and do their best to cook up ways to guard it against taxes, stupid descendents and black swans.
- Which leads me to the question; is it ethical to allow a hereditary plutocracy to arise and embed itself so firmly that it can fuck about with any aspect of a nation's life they so desire? KarmaPolice (talk) 15:14, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- I think the $20m limit is overstated. Creating trust fund babies, which this amount would enable, encourages aimless lifestyles, what amounts to a mini-plutocracy class. The "Veblen goods" that you mention (I presume you mean conspicuous consumption) is actually worse in some respects than Veblen described. Expensive wine tastes taste awful (or so I'm told). Having the original 'The Boulevard Montmartre at Night' on your wall would come with a mandatory free case of extreme paranoia, which the billionaire class are loaded up with. Large amounts of inherited wealth is not ethical because it fuels the oligarchy. If one accepts democracy as more ethical than most other forms of practical government, then oligarchy is clearly not ethical. Bongolian (talk) 20:09, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- *shows cigarette packet*
- 1m 'Founding couple' house, small holiday home, personal assets.
- 2m Founding couple's retirement fund (100k a year for 25 years, @ 5%)
- 1m Contingency (gifts, charity, emergencies).
- 4m Total.
- Per kid/grandkid;
- .25 Early education, care.
- .25 College.
- .5 First home.
- .6 trust fund (30k a year @ 5%)
- 1.6m per person.
- Assumes reproduction rate of 3, so 9 persons.
- 14.4m 'for the kids/grandkids'.
- 18.4m Total assets.
- I think the $20m limit is overstated. Creating trust fund babies, which this amount would enable, encourages aimless lifestyles, what amounts to a mini-plutocracy class. The "Veblen goods" that you mention (I presume you mean conspicuous consumption) is actually worse in some respects than Veblen described. Expensive wine tastes taste awful (or so I'm told). Having the original 'The Boulevard Montmartre at Night' on your wall would come with a mandatory free case of extreme paranoia, which the billionaire class are loaded up with. Large amounts of inherited wealth is not ethical because it fuels the oligarchy. If one accepts democracy as more ethical than most other forms of practical government, then oligarchy is clearly not ethical. Bongolian (talk) 20:09, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- (points out 20m was 'absolute limit', taking into account large family, one or more descendents being disabled etc).
- Would this create a load of mini-babies who'll coast through life? Sure. But it will also provide a decent trampoline upwards if any of the 2/3rd gen were desiring/capable of it. Or provide a cushion if any wished to take a low-paid but socially useful job, like in education, science, the arts etc. Money don't buy you happiness, but sure as hell a reasonable but not luxurious mortgage-free home and a lifetime modest stipend means that a lot of the money-related stresses should be clear without 'it going to their heads' [or becoming an oligarch class]. And from my experience, you'll always have some folks in this world who will 'coast' regardless of actual SoL. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:13, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
Are we witnessing the end of Social Democracy in Europe?[edit]
Government in France is collapsing. And of course, leading countries in Europe are in both societal and economical crisis since long now. Not surprisingly, more and more governments are preparing people for war. The obvious effect is that social welfare will be cut down in favour of military spendings, something that will only add to distrust at Liberal governments and values (a damage already done by Trumpist ideological insurgence) Alexk (talk) 01:55, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- Social democratic countries were doing fine last time I checked. Governments come and go, but institutions remain. In my opinion, the main challenge that social democracy will face in the next decades will be dealing with a declining workforce. Immigration, of course, can fix this issue at least to some extent, but Europe doesn't seem to want immigrants, so unless we have a huge leap in productivity (no, I don't think AI will do that) or Europeans start having more babies (giving how pathetic were the results of spending 5 percent of your GDP in pro-natalist policies in Hungary I doubt that they will) some major cuts will possibly happen in the next decades, but that doesn't mean the demise of a very good system. Personally, I think that social democracy is, from an intellectual and political standpoint, in a much better position than 30 years ago. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 00:40, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- Being the best-working system we have tried in the last century (with some bad examples, like Greece) doesn't mean it will be on the winning side (see Weimar Republic). Major cuts alone mean that established Socialdemocratic instititions in Europe will be striked from both Left and Right-wing populists, with nationalism already on the rise, capitalism entering its self-eating stage, and total war with Russia on the way.Alexk (talk) 01:55, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- I think one of the key issues is that a lot of the 'social democratic' parties died as such some time ago; that being down to them morphing into Third Way/Neoliberal 'let's tinker about the edges' parties in the desire to court the votes of the well-heeled who like all people doing well for themselves, will shove a pick in the skull of those who threaten to spill their drink. So they latched onto managerial/technocratic solutions, hoping to improve things without spilling that drink. This became a kind of 'doom loop'; the more 'technocratic' the party became, the more it attracted technocrats, which by it's very nature became more and more suspicious of actual public participation in politics - that like everything else, they want everything 'neat' and 'managed'; a managed democracy where you only passively vote 'on the skill of the captain' and you're never bloody allowed to actually question the direction the ship is going. This became more lethal a loop as in many nations the 'mainstream right' either imploded or were hijacked by the populist/reactionary right, which drove the rightist technocrats into the 'leftist' party, which not just strengthened the technocratic lean but also shunted them rightwards. And because Third Way was at best a dubious ideology success-wise and is a total fail now, our technocrats usually spend their time trying to explain away poverty etc via graphs [which isn't new; David Lloyd George 120 years ago derided the British Conservatives as 'trying to feed starving men with harvest statistics'] which shows they are either disconnected to 'the real world' or worse, simply don't give a fuck of the human element. And why the rightists can [with some evidence] attack these parties as being 'the Establishment' [ie the party of the managers and technocrats who run most of the country] and harvest a lot of the discontent which traditionally was 'ours'.
- Being the best-working system we have tried in the last century (with some bad examples, like Greece) doesn't mean it will be on the winning side (see Weimar Republic). Major cuts alone mean that established Socialdemocratic instititions in Europe will be striked from both Left and Right-wing populists, with nationalism already on the rise, capitalism entering its self-eating stage, and total war with Russia on the way.Alexk (talk) 01:55, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- Or for a TL:DR version; the mainstream leftist parties fucked up the day they decided that having a heart in politics was bad and having public participation in party politics was even worse. And herein lies the solution; that if they re-discover their hearts, that they actually start welcoming back the noisy, fractious and somewhat uncontrollable public participants [and accepting this every partial chaos as a feature, not a bug] and allow genuine two-way conversations to happen again, they will continue to lose ground on all flanks until they become an electoral irrelevance.
- Anyway, I *do* see several major productivity gains in the works for Europe. You're 100% right to be wildly suspicious on AI [and it's sibling, robots] but both do have their part to play. Computing power and LLMs can reduce humans in data-driven roles, while chatbots will cut the numbers of call centre workers and personal assistants. Jeeves the bot won't do your physical shopping for you, but there is no fundamental reason now why warehouses can't be much more automated than they are presently. And this isn't even taking into account the swathes of Euro economies which have not embraced previous waves of productivity gains; from computerisation to electrification, leading to the obvious solution of increasing capital density [for example, the UK per-head has a third less capital than Germany, and it shows in our SoL]. Other innovations will be more... contentious, such as making greater use of tech such as modular/flat-pack buildings, 3D printing, GM crops etc which threatens our 'traditional way' of doing things. Even simply suggesting that we [as a continent] consume less meat/dairy so that land can be used for more legumes [so we can become more self-sufficient and need fertilisers less] kicks up a shitstorm, esp in countries such as France where 'our food' is a political third rail.
- Demographics offers both challenges and advantages economically - and the latter is rarely mentioned. A stagnant population size means that there isn't a constant rush to add more homes, transport links, utilities etc [meaning the labour-force will be on a 'replacement of end of life' projects only, and thus smaller] or to constantly increase production of foodstuffs etc while older citizens consume less products per-head [clothing, furniture etc] which means less workers in these sectors. As for changing the birthrate; it's no secret how to do it, sociologists have known 'the answer' since the 1960s [the USSR was the first nation to show this issue] - that modern, industrial society which has economic output as it's core goal ends up throwing a ton of 'hygiene' factors which strongly discourage having children [or more children]. Hungary's attempts didn't really work because they were very biased towards who they wanted to have more kids [guess what, LGBT, the poor, foreigners, the unmarried or the womb being over 30 need not apply], a lot of it was loaded into loans [with some shit T/Cs attached], was draped with right-wing rhetoric and most importantly, didn't really answer any of those hygiene factors. [Interestingly, I have seen it argued that it was the reduction of teen pregnancies in Europe which finally pushed our birthrate under replenishment levels]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- That's an interesting point. Indeed, a stagnant population means that the government can spend less in housing, even on education and probably on many other things, and focus on healthcare, pensions, etc... And yes, I have little doubts that a smaller birthrate is better for the economy than teen pregnancies. By the way, how do you see the "guns versus butter" problem that our friend mentioned? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 12:59, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- Also, this is piece by Foreign Affairs is a very interesting take on a declining population.[10] While the author works for the American Enterprise Institute, and right-wing organizations are known for advocating for pro natalist policies (at least when it comes to while people) he argues that, despite the many challeges that a declining population means, the doomsayers are also wrong. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:09, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- The current (and recurring) government crisis in France is definitely not an example of the European social democratic malaise that has become known as Pasokification
for the simple reason that Macron and his party are not and have never been social democratic, but are liberals of the social liberal/neoliberal variety.
- The current (and recurring) government crisis in France is definitely not an example of the European social democratic malaise that has become known as Pasokification
- Also, this is piece by Foreign Affairs is a very interesting take on a declining population.[10] While the author works for the American Enterprise Institute, and right-wing organizations are known for advocating for pro natalist policies (at least when it comes to while people) he argues that, despite the many challeges that a declining population means, the doomsayers are also wrong. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:09, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- That's an interesting point. Indeed, a stagnant population means that the government can spend less in housing, even on education and probably on many other things, and focus on healthcare, pensions, etc... And yes, I have little doubts that a smaller birthrate is better for the economy than teen pregnancies. By the way, how do you see the "guns versus butter" problem that our friend mentioned? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 12:59, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- Demographics offers both challenges and advantages economically - and the latter is rarely mentioned. A stagnant population size means that there isn't a constant rush to add more homes, transport links, utilities etc [meaning the labour-force will be on a 'replacement of end of life' projects only, and thus smaller] or to constantly increase production of foodstuffs etc while older citizens consume less products per-head [clothing, furniture etc] which means less workers in these sectors. As for changing the birthrate; it's no secret how to do it, sociologists have known 'the answer' since the 1960s [the USSR was the first nation to show this issue] - that modern, industrial society which has economic output as it's core goal ends up throwing a ton of 'hygiene' factors which strongly discourage having children [or more children]. Hungary's attempts didn't really work because they were very biased towards who they wanted to have more kids [guess what, LGBT, the poor, foreigners, the unmarried or the womb being over 30 need not apply], a lot of it was loaded into loans [with some shit T/Cs attached], was draped with right-wing rhetoric and most importantly, didn't really answer any of those hygiene factors. [Interestingly, I have seen it argued that it was the reduction of teen pregnancies in Europe which finally pushed our birthrate under replenishment levels]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- Macron’s supposed interest in the “flexicurity” systems of the Scandinavian labour markets has always focused solely on the flexibility part (easy to hire/fire), but little on the accompanying security (relatively high unemployment benefits etc.), which is just one example of him not being a social democrat, but a liberal.
- That said, there has been a long crisis in European social democracy, but it’s varied and has had different result, from the marginalisation of previously strong social democratic parties in Greece and the Netherlands to significant decline, but not exactly wipeouts in Germany and France to the weird morphing of the Danish Social Democrats to something like a “moderate” version of the Danish People's Party, while regaining/retaining power, just like the Norwegian Labour Party has been able to regain/retain power. Not to mention that social democratic parties have done fairly well in Portugal and seem to have bounced back in Spain after being challenged from the left by Podemos/Sumar.
- The main weakening of Western/Norther/Southern European social democracy, i.e. those outside of the (former) Eastern Bloc, came with the societal changes in the 1970s and ‘80s and the subsequent surrender of key ideological points to the centre right by the New Labour inspired course changes in the 1990s and 2000s.
- The patterns in Central and Eastern Europe are different yet again, due to some of their social democratic parties springing from reformed, post Soviet, communist parties and their political developments being much different from the already diverse patterns in Western Europe. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:04, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- - The key issue is that the forces of capitalism hate the idea of a 'static population' and an 'older population' because between them have echoes of turning the country into a steady-state economy [older people do not only consume a lot less 'stuff' but are also more resistant to fads/novelty which is a major factor in consumerist churn]. It would require a considerable change in outlook; that companies would have to focus better on developing genuinely better products than simply trying to trick them into buying crap, that market conditions would generally be very mature [as relatively few new consumers would be coming on-line] and they'd have to put more heed into actually training and retaining workers than their traditional 'don't need to do nowt, there's more where that came from' mentality which is riddled in the care, retail and logistics sectors [esp if Europe remains relatively hostile to external migration]. It's why the likes of the AEI are so 'pro bump'.
- -[non-paywalled edition]. Most of the points they raise I've already noted and generally speaking, that article cites the issues rather than proffering solutions [so is safe]. For example, a lot of that 'saved spend' on child education you mentioned will need to be ploughed back in to adult education - that we already need the capabilities to reskill/refresh older workers skillsets and if Europe's workforce is going to be even older and working older too. And socially there's 'challenges and advantages' too; on one hand it threatens to bake in an elderly perma-majority electorally [which could spell disaster] but on the other hand it might spur the making of more multi-generational co-living housing stock [thinkpiece] which can nail both 'childcare' and 'senior care' issues to mutual benefit.
- - In the general 'guns/butter' debate; I pick the third option - machines. That Europe probably could have afforded both if it wasn't due do the massive upshoot of national debt due to the bank bailouts and then Covid. So what we have to do is work to increase our capital stock to get growth at a higher speed than traditionally and therefore, better-placed to sort out our structural deficits. This appears what the Germans are attempting, though they do have the advantage their total debt ratios are still well below 100% - other countries simply do not have that 'breathing room'. What's more, Euro membership is a partial straightjacket; like we all learned when Greece hit the skids - it couldn't devalue and had austerity imposed on them from outside by technocrats who didn't really give a fuck about social cohesion or the fate of the Greek politicos who had to accept it. But if put into a either/or situation; it has to be the guns. The mid-east is falling to bits, the rusted tiger which is Russia is slowly chewing through Ukraine, it would only take one major event to send tens of millions of refugees tramping up to the Med and knocking on our collective door and America should be expected to be somewhere between at best an unreliable ally, at worst an actual adversary. We can either delude ourselves that some or none of those things are in fact true [and so continue to do nothing] or we face up to the plain fact there's no fucking point discussing our welfare systems etc if we find ourselves drift into a war with Russia, a bunch of far-right cretins take power across the continent and/or we find ourselves hamstrung due to lack of economic resources. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:57, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
- The collapse of the French government doesn't come in a vacuum: Macron called for new elections, when he had what could be called an implicit absolute majority. He lost said absolute majority. The left "won" the election (that's usually what coming first means). Now, he had two options of non-agression, or "coalition" or whatever: the entire left, from LFI to PS, or the far-right. He decided to name a minister from the LR party. The problem: LR + macronist alliance doesn't equal absolute majority. He needs more deputies. And so, in the name of "stability", the completely illegitimate and frankly not democratically elected Bayrou government was supported by the PS (the "social-democrats", …), the macronists, LR and of course the National Rally. Still, the only ministers came from Macron's alliance (already fairly liberal-conservative and centre-right since Darmanin was interior minister) and the traditional right-wing, LR. Of course, the "traditional right-wing" means very far-right leaning, to say the least, ministers. The true Gaullists from LR, with an understanding for the need for a providence state (the right-wing concept of social justice) that assures socio-economic equality, were not very involved. Macron needs to accept something: the left won, and the left isn't extremist, so he needs to name the prime minister the left agrees on (they lastly agreed on Lucie Castets as prime minister, but Macron named Barnier instead). Ok, let's say LFI is "far-left" to Macron: what about the other 3? The communists too? Ok, let's say the greens: oh, turns out Macron considers the greens far-left too. So Macron just wants a coalition with the Socialist Party and LR, and his supporters, which implements his politics. The problem: he lost the election. So this is sort of a problem now, this thing with calling elections and all for no apparent reason except creating chaos. Well, hey, the left apparently has a solution: letting it govern without Macron, but with a pact of non-aggression. You say no compromise is possible then? Well, a pact of non-aggression doesn't mean Macronists have to vote for left-wing legislation. They could just vote for the left's government staying in place, the left could avoid using article 49-3. The government won't last, you say? But that's the entire point of a pact of non-aggression. Why the left? Again, we have to remind people always, but the left came first, and therefore, in such a situation, has a little bit more legitimacy than the far-right (but Macron decided he prefers the far-right). So, there is a solution, why doesn't Macron try it (he only named LR and macronist governments so far)? Well, because Macron doesn't recognise he lost his own election, and therefore believes in possibilities (a minority government with no hope nor legitimacy, a hypothetical "grand coalition") strictly ensuring his politics (which lost at the last elections he called himself) continue. And then, he tells the French people they are "stubborn", he believes the opposition needs to "compromise". Compromise with the person trying to stay in power at all means? Really? How can you even do that? You tell Macron: "Here are alternative solutions to the debt crisis", and he calls you an extremist for not supporting his policies. He even managed to call the PS extremists during the last elections. So Macron is, in my opinion, a case which can't be compared to others. He is the principal representative of the "presidential monarchy", and the government collapse is linked to his behind cameras intrigues at the National Assembly. Also, today and on the 18th, fairly important (though, at least form my observations, seemingly not as important as the yellow vests) mobilisations took/take/will take place, against Macron, and the entire French left, from NPA (Trotskyist) to PS (social-democratic, centre-left) support the social movement. New world (talk) 14:46, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
On the shoot down of Russian drones by NATO forces[edit]
Any ideas what may come next?. Article 4 (consultation between allies) has been invoked and the drones were reportedly ones for reconnaissance, not equipped with warheads. Looks like Putin is provocating again given the number of drones, and I doubt Trump will do anything. Panzerfaust (talk) 13:36, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Whatever happens next there is no chance that NATO will activate article five over this. It might really have been a mistake by either Russia or possibly Belorussia.
- It seems that Poland needs to improve its anti-drone defenses though. It looks like around 23 flew in and they only shot down three or four - something like a 20 percent success rate. And with NATO's help. If the attack had been serious they would evidently been overwhelmed. They probably need to ask Ukraine for some training on that!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:52, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Start worrying when Katyn (and the other missing soldiers) get mentioned in the Polish media. Anna Livia (talk) 16:13, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Putin tested Trump - and [so far] he has failed the test. Let's show the Orange One's response on Lies AntiSocial;
- Start worrying when Katyn (and the other missing soldiers) get mentioned in the Polish media. Anna Livia (talk) 16:13, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones?”
- Trans: I am a slightly deaf/senile old man who does not actually believe what I am being told. Chances are, even if you speak louder/slower I still won't believe you.
- “Here we go!”
- Trans: If done in flesh, this would end with either an eye-roll or sigh. I love Putin, and those nasty wussy Poles are slandering him again.
- Message to Euro capitals. 'Take note; Trump doesn't have your corner. Fucking back down over Ukraine or else.' KarmaPolice (talk) 16:51, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- He does indeed sounds like a confused old man in the first part of the post. But I think you are over-interpreting the second, "Here we go" part. It's just the confused old man still rambling. Obviously, though, what he ever subsequently does will be claimed by him to be whatever the "Here we go" was supposed to mean. It's the usual trick of throw all the shit at the wall and then claim that whatever sticks was the plan all along.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:23, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, the last bit could mean something anything everything or nothing. But judging from the fact he did absolutely fuck all afterwards and knowing as we do the supreme man-crush he has for the Bloody Czar it's not outside the realms of possibility. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:57, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- He does indeed sounds like a confused old man in the first part of the post. But I think you are over-interpreting the second, "Here we go" part. It's just the confused old man still rambling. Obviously, though, what he ever subsequently does will be claimed by him to be whatever the "Here we go" was supposed to mean. It's the usual trick of throw all the shit at the wall and then claim that whatever sticks was the plan all along.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:23, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Message to Euro capitals. 'Take note; Trump doesn't have your corner. Fucking back down over Ukraine or else.' KarmaPolice (talk) 16:51, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- If Putin was sending a message it was answered with extreme prejudice. It reminds me of the joke about two guys running from a bear. One guy says "I don't think we can outrun it," and the other replies, I don't have to outrun the bear,...." You don't run if you can fight. Don't forget, the EU is full of angry white men who don't speak Russian.Zatoichi (talk) 18:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Revolution in Nepal[edit]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/10/nepal-gen-z-protests-corruption
The government of Nepal has been overthrown. This should be a sign to the Trump regime that people won't tolerate corruption. --Trans Fem Agenda 15:58, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Well, this episode unfortunately does provides lessons on what Elite Autocratic Wannabes should *not* do. As in:
- Don't cut off social media like the Nepalese elite did. Just mold and shape it, via outrage bait propaganda / bots / etc. Russia shows you how to do it right!
- Don't take thuggery *too* far. Although it is difficult to figure out "how far is too far"; many authoritarian states get away with massive amounts of state-sanctioned violence and thuggery. Nonetheless, it is clear that the police killing 19 protesters on September 8th (and injuring many more) just made things worse for the Elite. Far worse, in fact.
- Nepal is a "hybrid regime", which is an ostensible "democracy" that has authoritarian features to keep the Elite in power, such as election rigging, media intimidation, the suppression of political opposition, a non-independent judiciary, widespread corruption, etc. Basically what the Republicans under Trump want to be! (Although Nepal is (by a fair bit) more authoritarian and corrupt than the Trumpsters at this point.) A "hybrid regime" though is the most vulnerable type of government to coups, at least according to the Wikipedia article on Coup d'état.
Something for those "democratic backsliding" Republicans to chew on, I suppose...47.197.76.134 (talk) 18:42, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- If Trump continues down the road he is going then revolution could come to the United States. I can see an armed uprising in the future. --Trans Fem Agenda 20:21, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- They won't 'chew on it' because they have zero self-reflection, real knowledge of history and think 'all libruls' are very weak/cowardly and won't fight for anything. Alas, this [in my book] increases the risk of major political violence because they have zero respect for their enemy - they think they'll never, ever bite back. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:01, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- If Trump continues down the road he is going then revolution could come to the United States. I can see an armed uprising in the future. --Trans Fem Agenda 20:21, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- What Greek leftists have to report: "A pro-monarchist nationalist movement is violently couping against a pro-Maoist government. Smells like Colour Revolution."Alexk (talk) 23:40, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Isn't the current government lead by Marxist-Leninist CPN (UML), who don't get along with the Maoist opposition party CPN (MC)? Knight CommanderIn ServiceTo HerGoatness 05:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- While there have been pro-monarchy protests in the past in Nepal, I don't see a whole lot of "pro-monarchy" about this in the news so far. (The current Wikipedia article mentions a little bit but it does not seem like the focus.) "From afar via news articles" it seems like a very disorganized, chaotic mob movement.
- The only name I've seen floating around as a "representative" of the mob in a few articles is the mayor of Kathmandu, Balendra Shah,
who is an independent. But my perception is that him being "representative" is stretching things considerably. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 13:16, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Isn't the current government lead by Marxist-Leninist CPN (UML), who don't get along with the Maoist opposition party CPN (MC)? Knight CommanderIn ServiceTo HerGoatness 05:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Also - the Niccolo Machiavelli quote from The Prince about it being 'better' to do one big act against a person than many little ones. Anna Livia (talk) 09:40, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Question[edit]
I want to start hacking at every use of the word 'anti-Semitism' and revise it to 'antisemitism'. If I were to manually do this, would it be controversial or disruptive to any end? To (talk) 16:24, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- I had the category renamed as such before, & put the reasoning on the category talk page. At worst it would flood the recent changes with edits. Chillpilled (talk) 16:27, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Even the Michael Coombs page still has some there. Can't edit it out though, lol. To (talk) 15:03, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Charlie Kirk Dead[edit]
We are not sure until a death certificate gets made, but if he's truly dead, then I feel bad for his family. ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 20:27, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- I think most of us can separate our views of his views (and others) from sympathy/empathy towards the family. Anna Livia (talk) 23:12, 10 September 2025 (UTC
- I saw the video, and there's no way he lives through that. Won't miss him, but I doubt anything good comes out of this. Knight CommanderIn ServiceTo HerGoatness 20:44, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Seems like it's been confirmed (っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Natsuki Marx ♥ (talk) 20:48, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- (Edit conflict-he was apparently confirmed dead right after I first tried to post this) I'm pretty sure I saw the fencing response, so I'm fairly sure he is dead.-Flandres (talk) 20:49, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- It's been confirmed. Apparently he was answering a question regarding gun violence at the point he was shot. I don't care this is ghoulish, but I've not seen this level of irony since my fundie dickdead of a cousin had a fatal heart attack while haranguing/lecturing a group of people about eternal damnation and the afterlife. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:53, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- That's not irony. The killer planned to attack during a gun question.Whattheheck (talk) 19:02, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- I posted to the talk page as the event appeared on the BBC page - the death happened shortly thereafter.
- It's been confirmed. Apparently he was answering a question regarding gun violence at the point he was shot. I don't care this is ghoulish, but I've not seen this level of irony since my fundie dickdead of a cousin had a fatal heart attack while haranguing/lecturing a group of people about eternal damnation and the afterlife. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:53, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- (Edit conflict-he was apparently confirmed dead right after I first tried to post this) I'm pretty sure I saw the fencing response, so I'm fairly sure he is dead.-Flandres (talk) 20:49, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Seems like it's been confirmed (っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Natsuki Marx ♥ (talk) 20:48, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- The claimed suspect has been released - how soon before the conspiracy theories start? Anna Livia (talk) 23:12, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- It's already begun. Trying to find some real juicy words on X. Even ones calling for the DNC to be declared a terrorist organization or for it to be dissolved. In all honesty, all this is doing is creating a martyr on the Right. Anything similar to this or the Trump shooting, or worse, and there is going to be little reconciliation between the parties.Patty Pat 23:23, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- Welp, I think this may just be a big enough deal to overshadow the Epstein Files saga2001:67C:2628:647:35:402:0:207 (talk) 00:29, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- It's already begun. Trying to find some real juicy words on X. Even ones calling for the DNC to be declared a terrorist organization or for it to be dissolved. In all honesty, all this is doing is creating a martyr on the Right. Anything similar to this or the Trump shooting, or worse, and there is going to be little reconciliation between the parties.Patty Pat 23:23, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- The claimed suspect has been released - how soon before the conspiracy theories start? Anna Livia (talk) 23:12, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
- 2 months ago: Trump and other Republicans mock Democrats after Minnesota lawmaker killings. So, Utah Senator Mike Lee, how does it feel now it is your state?
- It is shitty that Kirk got murdered. I definitely don't want to see this sort of thing. However, I have zero sympathy for Kirk; the horrible gun / conspiracy culture that Kirk helped amplify in America; his cynically malicious use of American Christianity as a vehicle for such; and the Othering game Kirk (and many of his ilk) played then and plays now. Kirk enriched himself by playing with the fire of fueling American fascism, and Kirk paid the price of playing with this fire. "Fuck around, find out" as they say. (And this applies no matter what the ideology of the murderer is, which is unknown at this time.)
- I have no idea where things go from here or how to minimize the presently increasing political violence (at least practically and politically speaking). It would be nice if those who are in Charlie Kirk's "paradigm space" realize that a culture of violence just makes things worse for everyone, as proven today. From what I see, though, this ain't happening. The amplified us vs. them rhetoric from certain shithead figures continues, turned up to 11. (Even if they in reality this heated rhetoric puts themselves in greater danger, too, like everyone other political figure!) So it goes. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 01:20, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- The outpouring of prayers worked as well as always. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 03:01, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Though I am not a sociopath, my left-wing sense of humor awoke when I heard the report of the shooting and I smiled, until I heard that it was likely fatal. When I heard Kirk was dead, I wanted to vomit. I didn't like his politics, but in America he was entitled to say what he thought. He didn't deserve to be killed. The fact that I did not support his political opinions bore no relation to my ability to feel regret for his death. The far right now rises to the narrative that liberals and democrats are responsible for political violence. I would not be surprised for a right-wing conspiracy to eventually transpire. I understand that Kirk's relations with Nick Fuentes were so bad that Kirk's security wouldn't allow Fuentes to approach him at public gatherings. I think Fuentes accused Kirk of "betraying Trump." This is not evidence of such a conspiracy, but it does suggest it is unsound to believe that only a left-winger would want to assassinate Kirk. Zatoichi (talk) 03:29, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- There's billions of videos of the uncensored shooting on watchpeopledie, from tons of cell phone captures. The shooting occurred during an argument about how big an issue trans mass shooters are, not even making it up. It happened in the middle of that specific argument York re (talk) 05:26, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Never liked the man but no one should go like this. TheNFLGuy (talk) 01:27, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
They have shooter drills in US schools; they shoot politicians; apparently a leading cause of death in children is 'playing with guns' etc etc.
How soon will gun laws be introduced -'Blowing in the wind my friend.' Anna Livia (talk) 09:47, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- I also saw the uncensored.video, and that is the truth of gun violence. Yeah, Charlie Kirk has rhetoric that encourages gun ownership over fighting gun violence. Yeah, Charlie Kirk has rhetoric that calls out 'empathy' as libtarded in and of itself. So no, I will not mourn Charlie Kirk or really care about his family. It doesn't really matter what I say about gun control, I'm staunchly in favor of all rifles being registered to a gun club, but this is going to go sideways from a real middle ground. Suffer the little children, I am as close to an antitheist as it gets by fore I go bothering other people about their wasted beliefs, but I have no sympathy for a man who advocated so heavily for this exact reality. It's obviously not, what I as a fucking wildly left, avowed peacenik, and just, always against the death penalty. I don't want to live in a world where Charlie Kirk, as abhorrent as his rhetoric is, I don't want to live in a world where people use violence as a means to enforce rhetoric. I saw the uncensored video, I saw Kirk DIE. It's awful, people will tell you not to, but you gotta look it in the face, you gotta know what it looks like. Kirk was not a good force on humanity, but this action is fucking incorrect. Torrent (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Well said. Knight CommanderIn ServiceTo HerGoatness 10:31, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- I kinda marble mouthed a opinion, so rather than editing before a response, I do want to clarify. Christian Dominion politics are really stupid, and that's a real reason I despised Charlie Kirk. Torrent (talk) 10:49, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- I also saw the uncensored.video, and that is the truth of gun violence. Yeah, Charlie Kirk has rhetoric that encourages gun ownership over fighting gun violence. Yeah, Charlie Kirk has rhetoric that calls out 'empathy' as libtarded in and of itself. So no, I will not mourn Charlie Kirk or really care about his family. It doesn't really matter what I say about gun control, I'm staunchly in favor of all rifles being registered to a gun club, but this is going to go sideways from a real middle ground. Suffer the little children, I am as close to an antitheist as it gets by fore I go bothering other people about their wasted beliefs, but I have no sympathy for a man who advocated so heavily for this exact reality. It's obviously not, what I as a fucking wildly left, avowed peacenik, and just, always against the death penalty. I don't want to live in a world where Charlie Kirk, as abhorrent as his rhetoric is, I don't want to live in a world where people use violence as a means to enforce rhetoric. I saw the uncensored video, I saw Kirk DIE. It's awful, people will tell you not to, but you gotta look it in the face, you gotta know what it looks like. Kirk was not a good force on humanity, but this action is fucking incorrect. Torrent (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Putting aside all moral considerations, there is a big problem with a world in which your political opponents get shot. The problem is that your political allies might be up next. This is not a good development.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:52, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- is that not also some kind of secular moral consideration? You don't kill people for disagreeing with you, or rather, You just don't fucking kill people. What extra weight must that carry? I already heard today 'Oh yeqh, the peaceful and tolerant left' like, I'm not tolerant of this, why the fuck am I, as a full on Charlie Kirk hater for a decade now supposed to act like he was a good guy? but I've known kirk for a decade longer than a lot of these people just now finding out that a 'public speaker' got shot and he had a family. The US is radicalizing very slowly, but as I warned here about January 6th, I'm reading the tea leaves again, it's going to be stupid and bad when the pot boils again, centrism is the frog, the water is boiling. People who don't know Kirk's history will get glazed and not like this at all. People who are avowed Christians will not understand this as anything other than an attack on Christianity. I am going to say, South Park made fun of Kirk, which broadened his notoriety. Anybody who knew Kirk from 2012 on would have done this a decade ago. This is most likely dorkass reactionary bullshit from a kid who is terminally online. a long range shot doesn't come from an anti gun leftist. Torrent (talk) 11:17, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- I somewhat agree with Torrent on this one; that 'being murdered' doesn't automatically whitewash you. In these cases, it's best [in my opinion] to damn them with faint praise, such as 'sympathetic feelings to his wife and two young kids, neither of which will remember him. This is a warning sign of what happens when you have professional bigoted jerkwads going about stirring up hatred against different groups irresponsibly.'
- Anyway, I think there's major risk of him being not just whitewashed, but also puffed up too. I don't think we was important enough for folks to do half-flags etc. He wasn't an elected official. He wasn't the head of a genuinely massive [people-wise] org. Nor was he breathtakingly brilliant/innovative. Or had been on the scene long enough to really cement a unique legacy. He was [as our own page says] a second rate pseudointellectual who found a gravy-train/cock-massager by going about 'debating' students [perhaps the least-skilled demographic re: debating tactics/BS detection], trolling university campuses [and bullying them with 'fwee speech' arguments to get in if blocked] and then parading himself in Dominionist echo-chambers like he'd gone into 'the belly of the beast' and due to the grace of THE LORD and his own brilliance came out to tell about it. I know how orgs work; it's quite easy to 'build a large national org' if you have enough money to do that [and Turning Point have many secretive sugar daddies]. Plus, the average size of an American college is something like 6,500 students, so if you can scare up 0.5% of them to join your org [which wouldn't be hard as it seems about 10% of Gen Z adults are Dominionists], that's like 32/33 members - then allowing to set up 'chapters all over the country' which can then be used as flying crowds to be deployed when needed [where the money is the lubricant ensuring it all works right]. At best, 'Turning Point' only built itself off of the pre-existing white MAGA-Fundie students in the university system who were already feeling 'isolated' and 'suppressed' because they were outside of their fundie bell jars [unless they were at an actual fundie college too, obs]. Ie: Kirk was already preaching to the choir. The fact he was young and 'a good debater' [sic] meant the old farts who rule the fundie world saw him as a means to 'get down with the kids' so they signed him up and found the daddies. That's actually really important because 'being a commentator/speaker' became their full time job while their 'librul' opponents simply don't have the funding to do similar [again, this is one of the key advantages of the right; in lieu of daddies 'we' must donate a lot more to orgs so they can hire more professional organisers/speakers/propagandists]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:48, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Sadly, it seems that various mainstream media outlets have already begun to whitewash Kirk’s reputation by portraying him as simply “a controversial debater” with this BBC obituary being just one example. I chalk this up to yet another example of the pernicious effects of “both sideism” masquerading as journalistic neutrality and objectivity that has plagued certain sections of the media landscape for years. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:27, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, in "mainstream media", you are fired if you even hint that Kirk's rhetoric played a role in his murder.
- (This is a great example of why the only people that watch cable news these days are 65+ year old farts. There is a lot of bullshit on the Internet, but also a lot of independent outlets that do a hell of a lot better job covering the news than print or television, and won't wimp out at this sort of thing.)
- Fox News talking heads, meanwhile, are calling for war and revenge. So it goes, and we don't very much about the assassin yet! The only thing we know is that the person is "of college age", "blended well into the campus environment", and used a high-powered bolt action rifle. Meaning: from my perspective, there's more than a decent chance that the assassin profile is not what the permanently enraged MAGA crowd imagines in their head... 47.197.76.134 (talk) 14:55, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Talking of 'old farts', heard some Clinton-era throwout [didn't catch his name] who let the GBeebies presenter to peddle the line 'it's all the left's fault because they hate free speech' and then did the usual mealy-mouthed lament about how 'that we need to work together' and bitching about those 'radicals' who didn't give arse-licking eulogy for Kirk. Then went on about how 'both sides worked together during Sept 11th' but utterly forgetting how partisan it became soon after what with the Patriot Act, the Iraq War etc. Oh, and he totally ignored the fact when that that Minnesota politco was killed 'the right' was nastier.
- Sadly, it seems that various mainstream media outlets have already begun to whitewash Kirk’s reputation by portraying him as simply “a controversial debater” with this BBC obituary being just one example. I chalk this up to yet another example of the pernicious effects of “both sideism” masquerading as journalistic neutrality and objectivity that has plagued certain sections of the media landscape for years. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:27, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Anyway, I think there's major risk of him being not just whitewashed, but also puffed up too. I don't think we was important enough for folks to do half-flags etc. He wasn't an elected official. He wasn't the head of a genuinely massive [people-wise] org. Nor was he breathtakingly brilliant/innovative. Or had been on the scene long enough to really cement a unique legacy. He was [as our own page says] a second rate pseudointellectual who found a gravy-train/cock-massager by going about 'debating' students [perhaps the least-skilled demographic re: debating tactics/BS detection], trolling university campuses [and bullying them with 'fwee speech' arguments to get in if blocked] and then parading himself in Dominionist echo-chambers like he'd gone into 'the belly of the beast' and due to the grace of THE LORD and his own brilliance came out to tell about it. I know how orgs work; it's quite easy to 'build a large national org' if you have enough money to do that [and Turning Point have many secretive sugar daddies]. Plus, the average size of an American college is something like 6,500 students, so if you can scare up 0.5% of them to join your org [which wouldn't be hard as it seems about 10% of Gen Z adults are Dominionists], that's like 32/33 members - then allowing to set up 'chapters all over the country' which can then be used as flying crowds to be deployed when needed [where the money is the lubricant ensuring it all works right]. At best, 'Turning Point' only built itself off of the pre-existing white MAGA-Fundie students in the university system who were already feeling 'isolated' and 'suppressed' because they were outside of their fundie bell jars [unless they were at an actual fundie college too, obs]. Ie: Kirk was already preaching to the choir. The fact he was young and 'a good debater' [sic] meant the old farts who rule the fundie world saw him as a means to 'get down with the kids' so they signed him up and found the daddies. That's actually really important because 'being a commentator/speaker' became their full time job while their 'librul' opponents simply don't have the funding to do similar [again, this is one of the key advantages of the right; in lieu of daddies 'we' must donate a lot more to orgs so they can hire more professional organisers/speakers/propagandists]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:48, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- They really do have no fucking clue. He was the prime example of why the 'establishment Democrats' are being eaten alive. Ever-so eager to be 'moderate', 'reasonable' and 'crossing the divide' regardless to what 'the opposition' are actually standing, their political rollerskates get caked in shit as they follow them into the swamp [and then bit we're 'extreme' by not following them]. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:43, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Welp, Bomb Threat at DNC HQ in DC. It's going to get worse before it gets better, isn't it?Edit: looks like it was fake CorruptUser 19:23, 11 September 2025 (UTC)- Did you think otherwise? MAGA is going to weaponise this. At very least we're going to see lots of police attention being re-directed even more to investigate 'far left organisations'. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:26, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- People concerned this will lead to some mass repression of organized leftists, despite the shooting being lone wolf, seem to have missed that effective leftist political parties were banned from US ballots or otherwise systemically oppressed over a half century ago, with people having to swear oaths against left-wing parties, and their leaders imprisoned, partially under laws specifically designed to do so from Wilson and FDR. By the late 1970s "left-wingism" had taken a hard turn toward social issues no capitalists feel particularly threatened by, and the most prominent 1960s left-wing activist with at least some class consciousness killed themselves in the 1980s. Since then it's just been a parade of Democratic Party lobbying groups that have barely anyone in them outside major cities. There's hardly anyone organized to oppress at this point, it's mostly be symbolic if there was some repeat of all that. Almost entirely what is left is just anger from random, often non-partisan people toward this country's lurch toward psychopathy and selfish indvidualism. York re (talk) 19:47, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- MAGA will be writing the definition of 'far left' via a weaponised DoJ etc. And as I've seen them label Biden, Harris, Pelosi as being 'far left' etc your optimism is on shaky ground. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- If it turns out that the shooter wasn’t a clear cut leftist, let alone the kind of “deranged, woke Marxist” the wingnuts are fantasising about, the MAGA crowd will either invent some conspiracy theory of “the sky is actually green” level of delusion to make him one anyway or they’ll just ignore the shooter’s actual motives and background while continuing their persecution complex rhetoric and depicting themselves as an embattled and excluded minority, tyrannised by “the left”. Both approaches would basically follow the pattern of the MAGA reactions to the Trump shooting, as they started out being the former, then mainly switched to the latter.
- MAGA will be writing the definition of 'far left' via a weaponised DoJ etc. And as I've seen them label Biden, Harris, Pelosi as being 'far left' etc your optimism is on shaky ground. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- And I totally agree with the conclusion that a lot of the “establishment Democrats” are completely deluded in their “let’s just work together” nonsense, as well. Nor do I expect any of them to highlight the disparity in the GOP reactions to this shooting and the Minnesota assassinations either, due to both these Democrats’ obsession with “politeness” vis-à-vis the GOP and out of their bizarre fear that calling out this GOP hypocrisy would be to “politicise” the latest shooting (as if the GOP isn’t already hard at work doing exactly that, just in the service of some quite different politics). ScepticWombat (talk) 19:58, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- RE: Karmic's statements on Biden/Pelosi etc. "MAGA will be writing the definition of far-left". They can define things all they want, including calling the sky orange, but if the shooter was a leftist and there is an arrest of Biden, Harris, and Pelosi, (which would be wildly unpopular and deranged) that would not be "persecuting organized leftists", I maintain there isn't such a thing to oppress outside a small handful of Democratic Party lobbying groups in major cities. York re (talk) 04:53, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- That is silly, in what world? "MAGA will be writing the definition of left" is already happening. Nancy Mace blamed democrats, called them leftists and said there's no reason to talk about republicans, and I honestly don't care. Democrats are maybe left of republicans? MAGA is fascist, who is persecuting politicians on either side of the aisle? Why is this a biden/Pelosi conversation? I am going to ignore this and encourage you to add a new topic, because this is strange. Torrent (talk) 08:52, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- From my perspective, in this situation, political leaders and media figures should be playing different roles. Barack Obama issued a tweet deploring political violence and praying for Kirk's family. Nothing wrong with that. Being the "adult in the room" is part of the leadership role. At the same time, there has been a lot of media articles whitewashing in the media Kirk's role in spreading conspiracy theories, undermining democracy, and attempting to censor-by-mob-pressure and bully opinions Kirk disagreed with. Of this, I disagree with the "mainstream media" ethos. I know there's a "speak no ill of the dead" philosophy among some, but to me, it is irresponsible to not acknowledge Kirk's outsized role in creating the inflamed culture that likely helped fuel Kirk's assassin (whatever culture that was, the chances are good IMHO that some hot pocket bullshit on the Internet fueled it.) You don't have to go overboard, but you don't have to downplay his role with mealy-mouthed phrases like "provocative opinions".
- I do think that the pundits, politicians, and other figureheads right now aligning themselves with the "RAHR LET'S GO TO WAR WITH THE LEFT!" are... well, being just stupid reactionary jaw jaw-ers, as usual. Personally, I actually don't think this assassination will change much at this time. From what I see, ordinary folks (regardless of what they feel about Kirk) already deplore this sort of political violence. Meanwhile, the people that are foaming at the mouth urging for a war with the left (actual ideology of the perpetrator notwithstanding)... already were foaming at the mouth at "the left", and have been for years, if not decades. Before the Kirk assassination, this lot was foaming at the mouth at some black guy who allegedly murdered a white girl a few weeks ago... and then, of all things, a fuckin' Cracker Barrel logo redesign. So the perpetually angry crowd has a new subject to get angry about. What's new there? Keyboard warriors will foam at the mouth on social media, probably a few will be nutty enough to commit violence. That's already the current situation.
- What's truly disgusting with this current environment is that multiple Republican politicians -- the folks that in theory should be acting like "adults in the room" -- have degraded to the level of the keyboard warrior slobs. I mean, as much as I disagreed with the GOP politicians like Dubya on back, one difference between the GOP then and now is that Dubya never publicly would have had the foam-in-the-mouth reactionary anger that some of the MAGA-verse politicians have today. (But that's a consequence when one sets up propaganda networks to keep the rubes perpetually angry. The rube anger ended up swallowing the political party whole.) 47.197.76.134 (talk) 12:56, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- - Thing is, it's not 'politeness' the old Dem/centrist farts are doing - you're perfectly capable of politely giving a 'reasons you suck speech' without a trace of personal attacks etc. It's a kind of warped sense of politeness, in which it is 'wrong' to cause offence or upset to anyone. I'm going to blame this on what I'll call an 'entitlement culture', that MAGAs believe whole-heartedly that they have the right to never be upset/triggered/contradicted/made to feel stupid/uncomfortable etc and our dumbarse 'centrists' bend over backwards to cater/reinforce this [ironically, they have the same disease they criticise a lot of the left having]. I am actually sure some actively weaponise this; in the same manner abusive partners do - that the moment they get any pushback it's time to get LOUD AND ANGRY and then blame the other party for 'look what you made me do!'. It's like a political codependency; that our farts now unconsciously see a major, perhaps their sole job now is to stop the right-wing blow-ups and to moderate their utterly shitty behaviours.
- - Yeah, Kirk/Shapiro's strategy for 'debating' is basically, intellectual exploitation. They're hitting up uni campuses etc for the exact same reason shitty guys trawl student bars for dates - they're looking for inexperienced women to fuck/fuck over because it's so much easier. And would we be okay with that situation, hmm? Their whole debating style is also shit; a combo of Gish Gallops and throwing out of stats - I have a couple of relatives who 100% believe that 'discussing issues' with others is like this. It's not, because that style is not much more than 'statements of position'. A genuine debate [a la 'this is my truth, tell me yours'] never really convinces the other participant of the rightness of the other, but it can help to understand how they reached 'their truth'. It's why one of my main tools is that of 'lexical semantics' - repeatedly making them define particular words ['woke', 'entrepreneur', 'feminism', British' etc] to ensure we are in fact discussing the same thing.
- - I think our new red link doesn't get how authoritarian systems develop - growing over time, not a flip of the switch. Now, the New Order has managed to great success cow the mainstream media, Corp America, academia, the civil service and foreign 'allies'. But; they have not yet [as far as I can see] managed to cow the American people themselves. That they retain the 'democratic habit' of free speech and political activity. Time for salami attacks. No, we cannot go from 'attacking Commies' to 'arresting Biden' overnight. But what we do is nibble away slice by slice; push the Overton Window smaller and smaller.
- Pick the furthest slice. Denounce as 'far left', 'extremist' and so on. Watch as our centrist farts trip over themselves to dissociate. Plant stories about how bad they are in the tame media. Create a whirlwind of smoke, whataboutism and JAQing off. Start spinning the screws; make the 'costs' of remaining in the group [or continuing with actions like protests] go up. Rent-a-mob counter protests. Encouraging social ostracism. Make them worry about losing job etc if they remain. Increasing police harassment. Hit with repeated 'investigations'. Suspend org's banking services. Make them pay for the policing of their protests. Don't need to ban it, merely make it so marginalised and hated [say like with the Communist Party USA during the Cold War] and riddled with police agents it's utterly neutralised. Then rinse and repeat on the next target.
- The totally insidious thing about this is how it warps the public's behaviour outside of the targeted groups. After a few examples of how protests were aggressively put down by police, you grow wary of showing dissent. Once you see the bruised face of an acquaintance after 'they fell down the stairs' with the police after they spoke out, you grow tight-lipped. When you hear of incidents where whole parties were arrested for 'anti-state activity', you grow suspicious of people you cannot vouch for. As you hear of people losing their jobs for 'political activity', your public and private 'faces' will diverge more etc. Already, there are reports that minorities are becoming more concerned about attending 'No Kings' protests because they fear they will face ICE retaliation, while more academics are losing their jobs because they are teaching things which the New Order doesn't like. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:42, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- So, the connection to Fuentes' Groypers is solidifying.
The shooter appears to be a Groyper. Zatoichi (talk) 18:24, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Plausible but by no means conclusive, he was some subtype of gamer. Groypers are just a particular type of political gamer. Bella ciao is popular among games outside groypers. Slav squat meme was posted in 2018 before any political association, the birthday costume could mean anything. It's also plausible he's a right-winger, but tons of right-wing tendencies hate supposed facsists. Right now I'm going with "unintelligible/individualized/other", like Crooks. Most people don't fall neatly in political boxes. York re (talk) 19:13, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'm seeing some leftie communities jump to the "groyper" or MAGA conclusion -- I think that's really, really hasty. Mind you, you can't rule that out that this guy was a groyper, but the only thing I can say for sure is that he seemed to be a gamer and he used some phrases popular in troll culture. I think it's safe to say that he was way too online. (Did he realize that only a small sliver of folks would recognize shit like the OWO bulge "copypasta" crap?) My guess also is "doesn't fit a neat box" politics too, but it's not a confident guess. We'll see.
- What *did* happen was that the assassin ended up being a white dude from a good old Mormon Christian Republican household. This was not the
skin colormental image the reactionary pundits had in mind, and seems to have quieted the "I WaNT tO Go To WAR WITH THE LEFT soooo baaad!!" pundits down some. (I think Megyn Kelly tried some weaksauce shit about his one semester in college radicalizing him because colleges turns you woke or something... pretty pathetic outrage bait, Megyn.) - I'm sure that the perpetually outraged culture war folks will learn nothing from this and move onto the next outrage shortly. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 20:35, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Plausible but by no means conclusive, he was some subtype of gamer. Groypers are just a particular type of political gamer. Bella ciao is popular among games outside groypers. Slav squat meme was posted in 2018 before any political association, the birthday costume could mean anything. It's also plausible he's a right-winger, but tons of right-wing tendencies hate supposed facsists. Right now I'm going with "unintelligible/individualized/other", like Crooks. Most people don't fall neatly in political boxes. York re (talk) 19:13, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
An effective idea for gun control in the US[edit]
https://engc.us/club-info/membership
Let's start here, membership to a gun club. Not a militia, not an exact insurance policy, but if you can get pulled over driving in the US and not have up to date license, registration, or insurance, you can get in trouble. Not haul you off to jail trouble, like driving a car irresponsibly (i.e. drunk driving) but driving a car is accepting inherent risk, and wince we can't regulate whether drivers are responsible or not, we require by law extra protections to prevent property damage or personal injury, because misuse of a half ton hunk of metal running on 200 horses worth of power will fucking obliterate anything unlucky enough to cross its path. Do people need cars? Yes.
So now, we've got the question of gun ownership. Do you have to register or tag your guns? No. Are you allowed to buy any gun for any reason if your person hasn't been flagged? Yes. are you required to have a gun safe? No. Are you required to pass a gun safety test? No.
Do not get me wrong, I have been around gun nuts and have fired guns with them, a majority really care about gun safety, but this isn't about that, this is about what we do when shit goes sideways.
So let's move on to gun registration. If you want to own certain gun modifications, like a suppressor, you have to register the suppressor to a gun club. Now, I'm not of the opinion that people would be committing quieter gun crimes if suppressors were free market no regulation, and I understand they don't 'silence' the gunshot as in movies. However, I do think modifications to guns should be registered and given to a broader, communal oversight. The same for rifles, if you want a hunting rifle, register with a gun club, log your use. I mean, I don't believe in a practical application as a perfect solution. Would every really care? Would they log all of it? That's not exactly important, it's forcing these lone wolf shooters into a slightly larger community that also enjoys guns and says 'what are you doing with your gun?' And of course people can lie and go commit atrocities, but they will have to commit harder to the lie, which is a deterrent, and it would be easier to find them.
Treat guns like we currently treat gun modifications like suppressors, which are like the nun chucks of the late 80's, just, not a real problem, the real problem is adjacent. It's not going to end gun violence, but it would make a difference. Torrent (talk) 09:32, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- fucking make a federal fund for gun clubs to run as a social service. Every single one would be socialized, I don't care, pay these assholes to keep their guns in check. Torrent (talk) 09:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- '...And that, students is how the Democrats in Congress were tricked into getting the state to fully fund and organise the paramilitaries which Trump Sr used to institute the New Order. The 'Gun Clubs' were almost immediately entirely dominated by devoted MAGA members, who then used it to deny arms to anyone who was not a firm Trump supporter. With ATF forces working to disarm as many 'unAmerican' people as they could locate, the 'Red Hats' were used to intimidate, attack and on occasion abduct during the final free elections of the Republic. Once the MAGA majority was installed in Congress, it passed the 'Restoration of Law Act' which granted the paramilitaries official powers as 'reserve ICE agents'. Now granted official status and up-armed with military grade equipment, the 'Red Hats' were the backbone of the mass, bloody crackdowns which the military had refused to do 'on a matter of honour'...' KarmaPolice (talk) 12:25, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
They shoot politicians, there was the Incident of Trump's Ear, they shoot kids by the classroom and nothing is done, and there are people who put gun ownership is their right above all else. #What if anything# will change their minds (insofar as the activities of what is in their skulls can so be defined)? Anna Livia (talk) 12:41, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- That is a really strange way of looking at it. The right to form a gun club wouldn't be political, it would be a form of beauracracy. Nobody would be able to hold a political stop on a gun club. Torrent (talk) 10:29, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Pray tell who is currently politicising the bureaucracy? What plan called for doing that? KarmaPolice (talk) 10:34, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Okay, so, it really only takes one person to form a gun club. It's a registration process. In theory, which is how you get bullshit through all beauracracy, you could still have a gun club of one, you just have to register it. I don't think worrying about the nuts denying arms to people is a fair slippery slope argument, and you can just say Donald Trump. I'm aware of project 2025 but it doesn't include gun reform. I'm putting forward shit that is already in place and suggesting expanding it, not saying remove the second amendment or let fascists hoard the guns. I'm saying a gun is a tool to explicitly end life. It is insane that it is not treated as such in regulation and privilege. I don't know where you're getting this idea that all gun clubs would be militant right wing and refuse ownership to anyone left of them. Torrent (talk) 10:53, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe you misinterpreted my "pay them" comment. Pay them cost to administrate, not to expand or activate or anything. Don't pay For their guns or their ammunition, that's not what I mean, I mean pay them to keep that shit in check. or don't pay them, it's not like I'm writing actual legislation here, I want something done to make US gun reform happen, if you have a better solution, Take Maslow's Hammer from my hand It's been so bad for so long, I'm open for any better suggestions Torrent (talk) 11:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Are you REALLY so naive as top think that it wouldn't BECOME political? It would be a classic authoritarian move..... and right now the authoritarian movement in the USA is a fascist cult of personality..... Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 00:05, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know what part I enjoy more [as in the dark 'laugh or you'll scream' type] with the OP's naivety...
- 1/ The fact they started this topic a week after Trump openly asked about trans people being allowed to own firearms. What, he's only Just Asking Questions, is he? How many fucking times does he 'just ask questions' on something and then get it, even if he's not fucking supposed to? [In a clear stopped clock case, the NRA actually vowed to fight that].
- 2/ The idea that 'just because it was not mentioned in Project 2025 it won't happen'. Shall we all form a circle and start chanting 'It can't happen here' in the hope if we shout loud enough it becomes true? Or more productively, can you tell me why it won't happen here? Who is gonna stop him, eh?
- 3/ The fact they have clearly not read the precis of Project 2025 [which actually raises the question of how do they know #2?] which literally states how they want to fire loads of career bureaucrats [who are to some extent apolitical and have their own seniority system, tenure etc] and replace them with a highly politicised MAGAcracy which shall do the Orange Nero's bidding whatever the fuck it is [with the added bonus of being able to utterly cripple any non-MAGA in power].
- 4/ The fact they seem to be utterly unaware of the Others the average MAGA-hat [who shall be our friendly bureaucrats registering our mandatory gun clubs] loathes - minorities, LGBT, immigrants, 'libruls' etc. I think [for example] blacks have a very good reason to suspect your 'Gun Club Law' shall be yet another method of trying to disarm them in the guise of 'gun control'. Oh, what about the stated desires to label Antifa 'a terrorist organisation'? I could easily see a situation where any person who ever expressed support for, attended a rally/protest for or donated to as being deemed 'unsuitable for gun club membership'. Hmm, you tell me; what kinds of people attended those protests?
- 5/ That in most states you need to get a licence/permit to open/operate a gun club. Or a gun store. If the state govt has already been captured by MAGA, I'll just make sure none of the 'wrong sort' get licences. Or close the ones which do exist How? Oh, we'll find totally BS but legal methods to deny, just like they do with abortion clinics. Nothing like a buttfuck of legal hurdles to close 'em down [for example, closing an abortion clinic on the argument it's hallway were not wide enough for a full-laden crash cart plus medics despite the fact they'd never bloody need that]. Other methods is fucking about with zoning, getting business insurance or the good old 'nod and wink' so nobody rents to you the property to operate.
- 6/ That 'paying them to administrate' will be effectively putting every gun club in the country into the Govt payroll. How much would it actually administer? Who knows, but it would be a very easy way to put a couple of pure MAGA-hats onto their books just so they can spend all their time doing shitty MAGA-stuff on the taxpayers coin. I have an idea, why don't we subsidise 'gun safety training' through these clubs? No, it won't be paramilitary training at all!
- 7/ In nationalising all the gun clubs [basically], you've now turned gun club managers into the 'firearms doorkeepers'. Whoops, due to all the previous it's all been MAGAfied now. Sure, a few 'true believers' will allow Others to own, but most won't. Want to join? Oh, there's no formal rules... but I would like to 'check' your social media, get two MAGAs to vouch for you and know you're a firm 'Bible-believing Christian' too.
- 8/ By making club membership mandatory for gun possession and the above, you've automatically made millions of Americans criminals and shockingly, most shall be otherwise legit folks who just unable to find a club which wasn't controlled by a MAGA-hat or some kind of right-wing loon. Incidently, you've now created another excuse to raid any property containing people you don't like - suspicion of illegal firearms. And you've created another justification for police harassment via repeated Terry stops, mainly on the basis you are an Other. This does mean that to a major extent, you've disarmed/criminalised one side of the conflict. Does this ever bode well?
- Pray tell who is currently politicising the bureaucracy? What plan called for doing that? KarmaPolice (talk) 10:34, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- That is a really strange way of looking at it. The right to form a gun club wouldn't be political, it would be a form of beauracracy. Nobody would be able to hold a political stop on a gun club. Torrent (talk) 10:29, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- And that is even before we chat about the technical details why this is pointless. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:32, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
Fascism is a mental health condition[edit]
Some common patterns of an unhealthy individual:
- - Paranoid and convinced of great conspiracies frustrating their attempts, which is often required to combat their own general lack of efficacy.
- - A seeming inability to function without constant conflict since it is the only way of relating to others that they understand or seem prepared to engage in.
- - A tendency to over-exaggerate the harms they have suffered so that they can then cyncically over-react in retaliation to others
- - violent outbursts and an inability to moderate their emotions that often creates a further lack of efficacy.
By comparison:
- - Fascist rhetoric and thinking is almost always conspiratorial, engaged in cherry-picking and confirmation bias, that is almost neurotic in it's ability to see "threat" in everything from gay men existing to full blown "jews control the world" antisemitism. This is despite many members of fascist organisations being alcoholics and drug addicts abusing cocaine etc. Often their life is a fucking shit show BECAUSE they're a coke-sniffing nazi, not because of immigrants.
- - Fascist movements and countries tend to be obsessed with their military, often to the neglect of many other parts of society... and if all you have is a bag of hammers... then all your problems tend to get treated like nails,
- - Standard for all sorts of abuse on both a personal and international scale is that acts of cruetly are usual preceded by the perpetrator positioning itself as "the victim" so it can justify ever more bombs, bullets, punches, whatever. Israel - Palestine, Russia making out to be some poor victim of the international community, never admitting that it's just a power-hungry machine at the stage.
- - Both for fascist groups and nations they often frustrate their own attempts by being too violent too early and being outted as extremists who the public largely dislike. The dangerous ones are the one's that can keep their mask on and not go "mask off" by throwing the nazi-salute "too early".
I genuinely think there is something here in that the dysfunctions of fascist society often mirror the dysfunctions of its hard-core adherents. Maybe I'm full of shit though? I'd appreciate people's thoughts on it even if they don't buy it,
Tikitime2 (talk) 17:42, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think "mentally ill" is a good way to describe "fascism".
- The core of this sort of authoritarianism usually ends up following two principles at the "rube level". There are others, but an awful lot derive from these two:
- A) Us vs. them. There is an Us. There is an Other. We are good. We fear other.
- B) Fear. Only strongman can save us from Other, who is enemy.
- Sorry, these are very human traits. That even includes if you add element C, Hope, the "Mystical/Symbolic Thingy Also Will Help Save Us From What We Fear" part, which often is a pretty decent chunk of "fascist" style authoritarianism. I would never describe Fear of the Unknown as "mental illness" by any means. (I would say that this is even the default instinct of most animals, humans included).
- A better word, perhaps is..."uncivilized"? Human civilization has tended to do *much* better when it is working together and ignoring superstition, stereotype, and closed-minds, compared to eras when the later dominated thought. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 18:50, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- I'm talking specifically about fascism, I know this is a very strange thing for a rationalwikian to say but I don't actually feel like "authoritarianism" is really meaingful. It's too broad to really explain any particular political ideology including fascism. The traits can arguably be seen in liberals as much as they can be in socialist and in fascists. Like the concept of an "in-group" is inherent in ANY form of politics and libertarians are just as prone to indulge in great-man hero worship as anyone else.
- I think Fascism has a certain disordered characteristic precisely because it is (to used nakedly marxist terms) often a tactical alliance between the petit-bourgeois and the lumpen-prole. The "privilleged" Nigel Farage's leading along the coked dealing football hooligan fans of Tommy Robinson et al. It is often the most chaotic people in society in some of the most desperate conditions being manipulated by some of its most cynical and careless.
Tikitime2 (talk) 19:54, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- To partially paraphrase a weirdo sci-fi author, Fascism and Communism are immune disorders. When too many people are excluded from society for weirdness of varying degrees, you get socialism, and when the weirdos take it too far and implement a purity spiral, you get communism. When boring normies react to the weirdos you get populism, and when they take populism too far they get fascism. You need both the normies and weirdos, and socialism and populism, in a sort of balance. You have to make society include everyone capable of producing, but you also gotta let society produce. When
- So no. Fascists are not mentally ill. That's Communists. Both are dangerous for different reasons, and should be opposed. -CU 24.186.106.204 (talk) 20:22, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- Gee It's almost like human brains are biologically hardwired for repressive dictatorships2001:67C:2628:647:32:504:0:1F6 (talk) 21:47, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- Kinda, yes. People care about safety, their next meal, getting laid, than they do their other rights. Many people are "natural slaves", in that they don't want to make important decisions for themselves because it's overwhelming. "The government that governs best is that which governs least" isn't possible because the vast majority of people are not 115+ IQ high-agency Liberal/Libertarian types who just want to live and let live. CorruptUser 23:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- "Communists but not fascists are mentally ill" and "most people are natural slaves" are both wild-ass statements to make. Antares (talk) 01:54, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- 1) Many, not most. Something being natural is not the same as being good. It's the duty of society to protect people from falling into slavery, because it ends badly for everyone.
- 2) The Far Left has worse overall mental health than the Far Right. CorruptUser 06:40, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- "Communists but not fascists are mentally ill" and "most people are natural slaves" are both wild-ass statements to make. Antares (talk) 01:54, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Kinda, yes. People care about safety, their next meal, getting laid, than they do their other rights. Many people are "natural slaves", in that they don't want to make important decisions for themselves because it's overwhelming. "The government that governs best is that which governs least" isn't possible because the vast majority of people are not 115+ IQ high-agency Liberal/Libertarian types who just want to live and let live. CorruptUser 23:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- Gee It's almost like human brains are biologically hardwired for repressive dictatorships2001:67C:2628:647:32:504:0:1F6 (talk) 21:47, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- No. Just no. The far-right has a very clearly defined ideological tradition, with a vocabulary taken from biology and fundamentally capitalist ideals taken from the traditional right-wing, in order to promote their racist and communatarian ideas. They believe that their "community" is the only "people" that exist, while in democratic-republican thought there are no "white" or "black" or whatever communities, and religion is irrelevant to public affairs. In a functioning republic, there is one unified people, one national community, and no so-called "true people", which is something the far-right can't cope with (that's why they are fundamentally dangerous for any republican form of government). Consistently, in Western Europe, there has been a tendency to "exclude" the historical nazis from humanity, to see them as "insane". In truth, they were, on the contrary, very much like you and me. This is why it's so scary to think that what seems to be "normal" human beings have the mental capacity to commit such atrocities simply for such vane concepts as "race" and "nation". To understand what's going on now and what has been going on for a long time with the far-right, you need to ask "why", not "how": to the nazis, just like to our modern managerial class, by the way, human beings are simply numbers in competition with each other. Violence, weapons, virility, all of this is part of this ideal of competition. I suggest you read the work of the French historian Johann Chapoutot, a specialist on these questions who explicitly states the danger of calling the historical nazis "crazy", and who makes parallels with modern neo-liberalism. You are right that there is always a certain conspiracy to it, though: "Jewish" finances, the "deep state", freemasonry, would supposedly be "effeminate" forces that "weaken" the "nation" (the community the far-right party supports: in the case of, let's say, National Rally, it's the Christian-white "community", which would represent the only real French "people" according to them). Once you are surrounded by enemies everywhere, all violence becomes justified: the "menace" to the country is the justification for breaches of human rights and deportations (of "only 'illegal' immigrants" of course, whatever that's supposed to mean. To the far-right, it means all immigrants, as they think of them all as dealers and criminals and rapists and assassins etc.). The far-right ideology is centred around the group, its "cohesion" and the supposedly "natural" competition (encouraging force and masculinity) between groups. The problem supposedly are the minorities and hidden conspiracies which endanger the groups cohesion and force: due to the supposed "mortal menace" of the group, persecutions up to genocide (as we all know) would be justified to them. Nazis were/are not crazy, they are still present in our times: The idea of human "work force" as a material good is taking back shape. After the fall of the Weimar Republic due to economic liberalism, after WW2, at least in France, a politic of solidarity was installed by the joint Gaullist and communist provisional government of the French Republic (1944–1946), which continued roughly until the presidency of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in the 1970s, when things started to change again in favour of a liberal ideal which today wants to remove the reforms of the National Council of resistance and the provisional government. The ideas of the far-right are still very much present, and we shouldn't be too confident that we're safe from another regime similar to the ones of the 1920s and 1930s. New world (talk) 00:04, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Paragraphs?
- I also have a firm dislike of fascism, but looking at the list above it would not be difficult to simply flip it around and then claim left-wing positions are signs of a mental disorder.
- For example:
- Unable to identify conspiracies leading to a lack of efficiently.
- A desire to avoid conflict resulting a failure to resolve issues.
- And so on. I won't continue as It would me entail writing bizarre things I don't believe. But you get the idea.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:37, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- @CorruptUser well that's understandable since far-left movements are disproportionately populated by people likely to have been traumatised and generally suffer ill mental health. See Trans-people, rape-survivors, people with disability, queerness or anyone non-white. My case is not that mental health is "better" on the left but rather that fascism itself constitutes the symptoms of a mentally unwell individual. As far as the left and mental health is concerned... well a hospital is full of injured people, that doesn't mean hopsitals cause injuries or that hospitals "are" injuries. Correlation not causation in that case.
- @Bob I'm not sure that flip works quiet so well as the left is not nearly as homogenous as the right is. Huge qualitative differences between how anarchists, marxists (even maoists vs dengists for ex), and social democrats think where-as the difference between various flavours of far-right is usually more a difference of preferred degree of violence (except maybe anarcho-fascism). For example: some left wing groups are notoriously and unhelpfuly combatative and some left wing groups are naive almost to the point of smugness. So that kind of monolithic understanding is especially limiting. Then again, you do get some particularly weird variations of fascism too I suppose? So maybe not as homogenous as is sometimes assumed?
- @New world I agree with your characterisation of fascist ideology and don't think it is particularly contradictory to mine. My aim here is not to "other" it from "healthy liberal politics". I see liberalism and fascism as essentially co-symbyotic. Liberalism is the politics of managing and facilitating capitalist society, which produces inequality and wealth accumulation. This creates economic insecurity, status anxiety and resentment among those at the bottom. + lobbying creates a politic situation where everyday people experience liberal democracy as corrupt, indifferent or un-responsive to their core needs. Add to that that privately owned media that tends to be (for obvious selfish reasons) largely anti-tax & regulation, ensuring progressive politicians have to fight uphill in battles which they will lose more often than win because of the resources stacked against them. Meaning the core issues that are causing the anger (failures in health policy, crumbling infrastructure, spiralling costs of living, enviromental degradation) are rarely addressed to a sufficient enough degree that will disarm the fascist cause.
- Capitalism produces the social and economic conditions that lead to fascism. It is one of the neurosis that develops as liberal society is torn up by the system it defends. That doesn't mean anyone has to suddenly adopt some tankieish love of the USSR or whateverthefuck btw and I think it's perfectly understandable to say "I can see that capitalism and democracy may actually pretty uncomfortable bed-fellows... but holy shit the thought of 20th Century style revolutionary leftism also terrifies me." Tikitime2 (talk) 11:50, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- French Revolution doesn't really scare me, neither does French social model, nor the reformer Robespierre, nor the reformist-revolutionary socialism of Jean Jaurès (which dominated/dominates the French left since the beginning of the 20th century). If by "revolutionary leftism" you mean state communism, that would have scared me 50 years ago, but today, not. It doesn't seem like it's going to come back anytime soon (let's see when Trump invades Venezuela how big that menace is today. My estimate — it's as small as the centre-left will be in twenty years). Oh, and, when talking about the URSS, never forget that Western Europe basically betrayed/abandoned Gorbatchev, leading to the current regime (installed by great democratic that was Yeltsin, liberator of Russia and friend of the west, as any 1990s journal will tell you). The revolution of 1917 doesn't scare me either, as it had potential to create something great, but the usual opportunists took control, at the head of them Staline. Generally, I find the "necessary" link between capitalism and republican democracy to be total bull****. "Liberal democracy" is called a republican regime, and the republican form of government isn't necessarily exploitative. In a very French way, I admit, I don't know that much (nor am I currently planning to learn) about the rest of the world, but: the French model of the "social republic" and the French left's republican socialism are an alternative model to the authoritarian and anti-republican (and often undemocratic) ways of liberalism. Socialism isn't necessarily the orthodox Marxism that argues for "dictatorship of the proletariat" (the defining characteristic of the far-left: here, the far-left is openly calling for one "community" to dominate over other components of the people), it can just be nationalisations and an alternative project leading to an auto-gestionary organisation. Another important component of republican socialism is, well, the republic: a more direct democracy, with an emphasis on referendums and protests, needs to take shape, through a citizen revolution (different from the socialist revolution), mixing demonstrations and elections. Once you insist on your ideas and get a couple of academics on board, you can achieve what France has achieved at least in name so far: "France is an indivisible [me: later defined as meaning the country has no communities, but only one people], democratic [meaning the sovereignty of the people and not whatever "liberal democracy" means], laic [me:meaning the separation between religion and the state, and the freedom of consciousness of the youth of the republic by prohibiting religious symbolism at schools], and social [me:a principle ensuring free school, free and public healthcare, and a tax system ensuring everything which is taken by the state gets reinvested into public infrastructure and solidarity] republic [me:a republic: a system of the four aforementioned principles, including but not limited to the democratic principle]", first phrase of first article of the French constitution(s), beginning of the deceleration of the right of man and of the citizen. So democracy and capitalism aren't necessarily a good fit. New world (talk) 13:30, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- You do realize that the French Revolution pretty quickly became a murderfest, right? If you are the type to think Revolutions are nothing to be scared of, when it comes time to line people up against the wall you aren't going to be one of the ones holding the rifles... CorruptUser 14:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Before the revolution which brought Europe republican ideals (what—are you going to claim that without France, the United States would have brought those? Not that they weren't a fairly upright republic at that time, anything else would be an anachronism, but never would history have been better without the revolution), people were literally living under feudalism and were being tortured by the king for simple "blasphemy". Tortured. And across the hundreds of years of that torture, that's a lot more deaths than the revolution brought. It was, and this is the consensus among French historians, by the way, the necessary change to France, which at the time (not today) wasn't going to come without violence. Oh, but if you would have been there, the king would still reign over France probably. Yes, very obviously the first republic was far superior to the ancien régime, and very obviously it isn't a "failure" of the revolution if the anti-republican Napoleon (a precursor of the later Boulangist far-right under the 3ed republic and even today's French far-right ideas) wouldn't have taken power and reestablished monarchy through a coup d'état. Also, while the level of violence is obviously not comparable to that of very authoritarian regimes, I highly suggest you to participate at an important protest in France: if you're unlucky, like I was once, you might get serious injuries, if you're lucky they will throw tear gas at you, your children and your wife (if the family is there) for no apparent reason other than "somewhere a person threw some object at a car—the car was clearly endangered and in need of protection" (they literally always use "protecting objects" as an excuse, even if the "danger" is a bottle of beer or something). They (the CRS) beat up tourists, working people and high schoolers and university students without distinction, they literally throw tear gas in front of pre-schools and elementary schools, and in cases like these, protesters sometimes decide to fight back. But no, I, like most other protesters in France, don't support a violent revolution, but a peaceful, citizen revolution through pacific protest and voting urns. New world (talk) 15:11, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- "the far-left is openly calling for one "community" to dominate over other components of the people" @New world I'm not really sure if that is actually true. I feel that has been largely over-blown by the projections of nervous liberals who see the dictatorship of the proletariat simply as a dictatorship of revenge. And france has all the same problems as everyone else does under liberal-capitalism as far as I can see. Though I might be misinterpretting you? Tikitime2 (talk) 18:27, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Oh, France has many problems, but it also has a solid social system built on a very integrated ideological framework (it's present in schools, universities, politics, cinema, literature, etc.). I'm not trying to say France is perfect, but, at least compared to Germany, the United States or any other Anglo-Saxon country, we have indeed (no matter how much the far-right complains about it) a left-wing subculture of which French leftists are proud of: in France, calling our system "socialist" isn't an insult if done by a leftist. Tell me another european country where that is the case? (All I can think of would be the Scandinavian countries, but I feel like they have had a big move rightward). France has immense racism problems, and yet one of the most diverse populations in Europe. In other countries, they still insist on Muslims converting to the "Leitkultur" (which France sort of does too, but in a different manner, without telling Muslims they have to convert to Christianity, for example). Useless "naturalisation" ceremonies for new citizens, unrestricted economic liberalism and the absence of opinion plurality (they call everyone else "populist conspiracy theorists", yet the result of their politics will be a coalition with the far-right anyway) are fairly new. While France has horrible views on societal issues, on social (socio-economic) issues it isn't that much off from what the left wants. And when I say we want social justice, I mean: most other European countries' populations want policies considered basic and not discussable in France. All this to say: we (French leftists) have reason to have some hope, and our country definitely has potential to represent a humanist, non-aligned, and social voice in the world, independent of the United States, Russia, and the US-vassal Germany. Not like the Spanish, German or any other European left is nearly as influential as the French one is. On your other point: "Far-left" is only "far" (extremist) if it is anti-republican (unless you use the vague definitions some sensationalist media use, where the far-right becomes the "populist right" and the populist leftists would necessarily be "far-left"). Extremism=anti-republicanism, at least in democratic republics, and, at least here, being against the republic means you don't respect its principles and its culture: the far-left want to put one "community" (the proletariat) over others. At least for now, that just isn't going to work, and I doubt it ever will, but it's not like you're fundamentally "extremist" is you supported it in the 1930s: Léon Blum (PM of the Popular Front) was a revolutionary Marxist and didn't bring much harm, quite to the contrary. So I guess you have a point there. New world (talk) 19:25, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- "the far-left is openly calling for one "community" to dominate over other components of the people" @New world I'm not really sure if that is actually true. I feel that has been largely over-blown by the projections of nervous liberals who see the dictatorship of the proletariat simply as a dictatorship of revenge. And france has all the same problems as everyone else does under liberal-capitalism as far as I can see. Though I might be misinterpretting you? Tikitime2 (talk) 18:27, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Before the revolution which brought Europe republican ideals (what—are you going to claim that without France, the United States would have brought those? Not that they weren't a fairly upright republic at that time, anything else would be an anachronism, but never would history have been better without the revolution), people were literally living under feudalism and were being tortured by the king for simple "blasphemy". Tortured. And across the hundreds of years of that torture, that's a lot more deaths than the revolution brought. It was, and this is the consensus among French historians, by the way, the necessary change to France, which at the time (not today) wasn't going to come without violence. Oh, but if you would have been there, the king would still reign over France probably. Yes, very obviously the first republic was far superior to the ancien régime, and very obviously it isn't a "failure" of the revolution if the anti-republican Napoleon (a precursor of the later Boulangist far-right under the 3ed republic and even today's French far-right ideas) wouldn't have taken power and reestablished monarchy through a coup d'état. Also, while the level of violence is obviously not comparable to that of very authoritarian regimes, I highly suggest you to participate at an important protest in France: if you're unlucky, like I was once, you might get serious injuries, if you're lucky they will throw tear gas at you, your children and your wife (if the family is there) for no apparent reason other than "somewhere a person threw some object at a car—the car was clearly endangered and in need of protection" (they literally always use "protecting objects" as an excuse, even if the "danger" is a bottle of beer or something). They (the CRS) beat up tourists, working people and high schoolers and university students without distinction, they literally throw tear gas in front of pre-schools and elementary schools, and in cases like these, protesters sometimes decide to fight back. But no, I, like most other protesters in France, don't support a violent revolution, but a peaceful, citizen revolution through pacific protest and voting urns. New world (talk) 15:11, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- You do realize that the French Revolution pretty quickly became a murderfest, right? If you are the type to think Revolutions are nothing to be scared of, when it comes time to line people up against the wall you aren't going to be one of the ones holding the rifles... CorruptUser 14:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- French Revolution doesn't really scare me, neither does French social model, nor the reformer Robespierre, nor the reformist-revolutionary socialism of Jean Jaurès (which dominated/dominates the French left since the beginning of the 20th century). If by "revolutionary leftism" you mean state communism, that would have scared me 50 years ago, but today, not. It doesn't seem like it's going to come back anytime soon (let's see when Trump invades Venezuela how big that menace is today. My estimate — it's as small as the centre-left will be in twenty years). Oh, and, when talking about the URSS, never forget that Western Europe basically betrayed/abandoned Gorbatchev, leading to the current regime (installed by great democratic that was Yeltsin, liberator of Russia and friend of the west, as any 1990s journal will tell you). The revolution of 1917 doesn't scare me either, as it had potential to create something great, but the usual opportunists took control, at the head of them Staline. Generally, I find the "necessary" link between capitalism and republican democracy to be total bull****. "Liberal democracy" is called a republican regime, and the republican form of government isn't necessarily exploitative. In a very French way, I admit, I don't know that much (nor am I currently planning to learn) about the rest of the world, but: the French model of the "social republic" and the French left's republican socialism are an alternative model to the authoritarian and anti-republican (and often undemocratic) ways of liberalism. Socialism isn't necessarily the orthodox Marxism that argues for "dictatorship of the proletariat" (the defining characteristic of the far-left: here, the far-left is openly calling for one "community" to dominate over other components of the people), it can just be nationalisations and an alternative project leading to an auto-gestionary organisation. Another important component of republican socialism is, well, the republic: a more direct democracy, with an emphasis on referendums and protests, needs to take shape, through a citizen revolution (different from the socialist revolution), mixing demonstrations and elections. Once you insist on your ideas and get a couple of academics on board, you can achieve what France has achieved at least in name so far: "France is an indivisible [me: later defined as meaning the country has no communities, but only one people], democratic [meaning the sovereignty of the people and not whatever "liberal democracy" means], laic [me:meaning the separation between religion and the state, and the freedom of consciousness of the youth of the republic by prohibiting religious symbolism at schools], and social [me:a principle ensuring free school, free and public healthcare, and a tax system ensuring everything which is taken by the state gets reinvested into public infrastructure and solidarity] republic [me:a republic: a system of the four aforementioned principles, including but not limited to the democratic principle]", first phrase of first article of the French constitution(s), beginning of the deceleration of the right of man and of the citizen. So democracy and capitalism aren't necessarily a good fit. New world (talk) 13:30, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Capitalism produces the social and economic conditions that lead to fascism. It is one of the neurosis that develops as liberal society is torn up by the system it defends. That doesn't mean anyone has to suddenly adopt some tankieish love of the USSR or whateverthefuck btw and I think it's perfectly understandable to say "I can see that capitalism and democracy may actually pretty uncomfortable bed-fellows... but holy shit the thought of 20th Century style revolutionary leftism also terrifies me." Tikitime2 (talk) 11:50, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- Let's suppose that fascism is a mental condition and is added to the DSM. OK. Then what? It is a chronic pathology of human society that appears to be contagious. This step would do nothing to solve the problem of fascism, because people with clinical disorders, apart from phobias, do not recognize they have a problem. So, you can't make them better, there are too many of them to incarcerate, and even if you did, they occur naturally and would replace themselves in society. See, the trouble with fascists is, if you try to correct them they will try to kill you.Zatoichi (talk) 19:31, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
- @Zatoichi Viewing fascism through the lens of mental health rather than politics is not about simply getting it listed in a medical manual. It is about getting an accurate understanding of how to reproduces, its effects on society and how to treat it. I'd argue A LOT of really ineffective interventions intended to strengthen our democratic culture to combat fascism in recent years failed to understand the fundamentally pathologic nature of the fascist worldview and ended up pursuing a course of action that actually played to fascist strengths.
- The Internet, TV and Radio were all hailed as tools of progress that would advance human compassion and understanding and all of them either fell short or ended up exarcerbating misinformation. IMO they made the fatal assumption that simply more information would result in more rational and compassionate politics. In this tradition a lot of internet platforms have tried to tackle far-right sentiment by hosting these rational debate/discussions (Jubilee) that often had the intention of hearing out very right wing individuals and then present them with alternative perspectives in the hope of creating more converts or at least vaguely "contributing to the discussion".
- But when you work in a therapeutic setting with someone who has severe paranoia or PTSD, you typically aknowledge that the emotional distress is real while helping them to see that... their husband is NOT going to kick in the door/they're not all recording you. What you don't do is tell them is that their fears, anxieties or frustrations are rational. When people treat fascism as a political phenomenon instead of some sort of neurotic state of antisocial dysfunction they legitimise it far more than it deserves. The fascist use the aknowledgement of "yes fascist group X's fears have a grain of truth to them unfortunately but" as legitimisation and then simply tune out what follows. I think the failure of many well-meaning liberals to understand fascism as a contagious force that reproduces itself through irrational impulses that in large enough quantities will completely negate honest dialogue, has meant they have put far too much stock in reaching out. Though I know I'm FAR from the only one to have made this point. Tikitime2 (talk) 17:23, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
- Fascism is not the term that I would use for the mental aspects phenomenon; this is a fuzzily defined political system that often happens to takes advantage of what I called "Othering" above to secure its power. If you look to the social sciences... "other" happens to be a term used from a philosophical standpoint,
at least if the Wiki classification is correct. Another term is in-group and out-group,
used in psychology / sociology. The term for what happens to out-groups at their most extreme is dehumanization.
So this type of stuff had been studied and there's names for it and you'll even find papers on people trying to figure out why people are this way.
- The thing is, as I see it, everyone pretty much has some in group / out group ideas in their head to some degree. It just so happens, of course, that some of the "far right" frame "liberalism" (of the American social kind) as "mentally ill", too! In group / out group in action from "both sides"! So... who's right here? "Them"... or "us"? As far as I see it... neither. This us vs. them compartmentalization is a very human trait -- not a rational trait at all, as you say, but animal instinctual. The heavier Othering certainly has negative effects on society, so I think that "minimizing dehumanization" is an absolutely great goal to strive for. But throwing around phrases like "mentally ill" at one political side alone will yield no progress here, methinks.
- People who have heavy dehumanized outgroup paradigms certainly are susceptible to propaganda that exploits such. I think this is the real issue when it comes to "fascism" or many other authoritarian systems... on the "using the Other" part, it's not a mental illness, it's a crass exploitation strategy to get the rubes to support something that ultimately often is against their interests. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 18:46, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
- I'd just like to mention that “the Other” is used as a legitimate anthropological concept in research pertaining to pre-Hispanic societies in the Americas and to the misunderstandings of Spanish writers: in this case, there are two or three "others" for western, incl. Latin American, researchers today (1. 16th century westerners from Spain, different from today's west. Example: the Spaniards of that time were not yet familiar with the decimal system. 2. Pre-Hispanic American societies, and 3. the specific cultural area studied, example: Mesoamerica, central Andes, Isthmocolombian area). 80.187.82.156 (talk) 21:42, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
- Fascism is not the term that I would use for the mental aspects phenomenon; this is a fuzzily defined political system that often happens to takes advantage of what I called "Othering" above to secure its power. If you look to the social sciences... "other" happens to be a term used from a philosophical standpoint,
- But when you work in a therapeutic setting with someone who has severe paranoia or PTSD, you typically aknowledge that the emotional distress is real while helping them to see that... their husband is NOT going to kick in the door/they're not all recording you. What you don't do is tell them is that their fears, anxieties or frustrations are rational. When people treat fascism as a political phenomenon instead of some sort of neurotic state of antisocial dysfunction they legitimise it far more than it deserves. The fascist use the aknowledgement of "yes fascist group X's fears have a grain of truth to them unfortunately but" as legitimisation and then simply tune out what follows. I think the failure of many well-meaning liberals to understand fascism as a contagious force that reproduces itself through irrational impulses that in large enough quantities will completely negate honest dialogue, has meant they have put far too much stock in reaching out. Though I know I'm FAR from the only one to have made this point. Tikitime2 (talk) 17:23, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
Good news: California is finally going YIMBY after all these years (at least tosome extent)[edit]
Housing was one of the very few policies that IMO the GOP was better than the Dems (that didn't make them good, their disdain for public housing is also one of the reasons why America faces such a huge housing crisis). According to the LA Times, the project is in Newsom's desk.[11] This can be indeed a great moment. Also according to the LA Times:
Residents fear the zoning changes would alter single-family communities and force residents into competition with developers, who would be incentivized under the new rules to purchase properties near transit corridors.
This sort of reasoning is pretty much why I can't tabe NIMBYism serious. No one is forcing residents to move or sell their houses. They can keep them. The reason why people usually sell them after zoning changes is because land prices rise. Hardly a bad deal for them too. I'm not saying that these policies changes are perfect, but they are probably a step in the right direction. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 18:44, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- thank. goodness. this is long overdue. The G (talk) 04:10, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- However, there are risks of 'densification' (which will be the net result of loosening zoning rules). Suburbs were invariably not built with the infrastructure (road quality, sewers, power lines, parkland) to take significantly heavier loads, and most are not designed to support 'different styles of living' ('burb apartment blocks need to be 'walkable' etc) and most importantly we are increasingly appreciating the ecological benefits of them (habitats, cooling heat zones etc). There is a big danger (as seen in the UK) where the Powers That Be think all they need to do 'to sort the housing crisis' is to allow denser builds. No, that's just the start. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:31, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
Blocking and automatic TPA removal[edit]
Why do admins of the site automatically remove talk page access (TPA) when blocking? I understand why for obvious vandalism accounts, but I'd recommend to avoid immediate removal of TPA for edit filter blocks, disruptive editing (that isn't necessarily vandalism), and anything that would have a reasonable portion of block reviews accepted. With the current system of automatic TPA removal, you can't really appeal a block and you are forced to wait it out (sometimes not an option) or evade the block. 2A02:6EA0:D33B:6282:0:0:0:13 (talk) 01:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- I have never as a mod either seen or done any immediate block of any account which was not an obvious spammer, vandal or banned user socking. All other bans go through the procedure which gives the accused full 'right of reply' and said banning then goes to a vote. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:35, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- I tend to block only if I happen to be first in the queue (stupid names etc).
- As some people may not understand the nature of RW/have a weird sense of humour/English is not their first language etc perhaps there could be 'a comment from the relevant RW spokesperson(s) as to what the issue is', a block for a short time for said persons to reconsider what they do, and if they misbehave thereafter then a more permanent block? This would require minimal extra work. Anna Livia (talk) 11:32, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- I look forward to our IP editor providing a handful of examples. I guess it's possible they exist - but claiming a thing happens frequently is less convincing than demonstrating it happens.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:42, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- It might be an idea to leave the mod page (or something) with the lowest level of permissions so if something does go wrong the blocked one can make a sock and appeal it. But methinks this is a convo that should be left to mods to decide. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:52, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- I look forward to our IP editor providing a handful of examples. I guess it's possible they exist - but claiming a thing happens frequently is less convincing than demonstrating it happens.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:42, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
Are there "levels" or "kinds" of knowing or is it more an "either or" thing?[edit]
Sparked by some guy on a spirituality forum that argued that knowing is limited and I said nothing is beyond knowing because then how would you know it to be so.
He argued there are kinds or levels to knowing and used the ocean as an example where one can have an experience of it but not know it. But to me that's defining knowing as knowing every detail about something and we don't do that. We usually refer to knowing OF something not it's entirety, or some identifying aspect of it.
There was also some bit about experiencing a quantum field or the galaxy but not really knowing it, I can't really remember.
But to me you either know something (or a fact) or you don't. There isn't really a level or kind to it, you either do or don't. They said the experience of pure love is beyond knowing but my response was "if you didn't know what it is or was like then how could you know you achieved it"? It's either you do or you don't know. If you want to extend that to knowing everything about something then you could argue that we don't know, but even then that's still having knowledge of particulars, it's not a level or kind thing. You do or you don't.
I guess I'm wondering if that's true, because to me it just seems more like a semantic game he was trying to play just to make what seemed like a point.47.5.66.54 (talk) 23:13, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- If his explanation involves "experiencing a quantum field or the galaxy but not really knowing it" - then you would probably be better off ignoring him.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:42, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
That sounds about right from what he told me, at least that was my first impression.47.5.66.54 (talk) 04:24, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
- We have a page on the woo-woo type of other ways of knowing. As far as science goes, one can think of levels of knowing, roughly bottom to top: 1) I read and understood this concept from a quality media source. 2) I have college training in the general subject and I read about this specific subject. 3) I read and understood the subject in the original scientific papers. 4) I'm a professional in the field and I've published about this subject. Bongolian (talk) 05:28, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
- To actually engage with the point raised: it is possible to question whether you can "know" anything with a hundred percent certainty. In epistemology it is often claimed that knowledge is a subset of belief. But then we are left to ask - why do we believe anything?
- Evidently that takes us to the question of how much evidence we have - because this is what informs our belief. And with better evidence we are more justified in our belief and are in a better position to claim that we "know" something.
- So I would disagree with our IP editor about knowledge being binary, but I certainly wouldn't follow the quantum woo rabbit hole which someone seems to want to open for him.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:37, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
- There may be a variety of kinds of knowing, but I don't know how you can understand them if you have not already experienced them. Every kind of knowing that you are capable of producing should already be familiar to you. If there are any others, you will never know about them through direct experience.Zatoichi (talk) 02:29, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
- Knowing is the application of meaning to information in context. All information and its context can be reduced to binary. A digital representation of a photograph can be reduced to a group of binary numbers, but looking at that aggregate number doesn't give us the knowledge of what it would depict when rendered as a graphic. This preparation for rendering is a way to put the group of binary information in context. Knowledge of the photograph is generated when someone looks at it and applies meaning to it. Meaning is potentially infinite, so not only are there 'kinds' of knowing, there are an infinite amount of kinds.2A0D:BBC7:0:0:F816:3EFF:FE65:992F (talk) 07:41, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
- You can have more or less confidence in the evidence you have. You can have more or less detail in your information. But while the quality and confidence of what you know may vary enormously - that doesn't mean that there are "an infinite amount of kinds" of knowing.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:58, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
- Knowing is the application of meaning to information in context. All information and its context can be reduced to binary. A digital representation of a photograph can be reduced to a group of binary numbers, but looking at that aggregate number doesn't give us the knowledge of what it would depict when rendered as a graphic. This preparation for rendering is a way to put the group of binary information in context. Knowledge of the photograph is generated when someone looks at it and applies meaning to it. Meaning is potentially infinite, so not only are there 'kinds' of knowing, there are an infinite amount of kinds.2A0D:BBC7:0:0:F816:3EFF:FE65:992F (talk) 07:41, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
ASIC accreditation[edit]
I was updating the Louisiana Baptist University and Seminary article. I updated it because LBU has ASIC accreditation. ASIC is known to accredit bogus schools such as Atlantic international University. This makes me wonder why LBU didn't try TRACS accreditation. It would make more sense. --Trans Fem Agenda 15:40, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
You know shit is bad when...[edit]
Karl fucking Rove is the voice of reason.
Related question; where do you Americans now get your news from now? If I was in your country, I wouldn't really trust mainstream/domestic news outlets now. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:21, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, even Tucker Carlson of all people was calling out Pam Bondi. MAGA gotta speedrun into fascism though, and the MAGA / Project 2025 folks really need their Horst Wessel
propaganda figure to fuel their Cultural Revolution.
- My general opinion of American legacy news has always been rather low (particularly for non-American news), but these days it is in the toilet. The US government run agencies in the past (PBS / NPR / VOA) have been better, might still be. But sadly I avoid these sources now; if they haven't cracked yet, I fear that they eventually will...
- Now, I do still consider many American weeklies pretty solid... as well as the wire services (AP / Reuters)... there's only so much time to news, though.
- So for me, it's largely British stuff for the daily international feed. BBC is my primary source. A little "look over the shoulder" at sources like The Economist and The Guardian here and there, too, when appropriate.
- I also follow a few choice Internet feeds, especially if they give more succinct daily summaries and aren't too chatty / repetitive (a *big* problem with Internet news sources, I've found). Two of them feature historians to help add perspective to the present (electoral-vote.com and Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American). The others are Paul Krugman's Substack for a Krugman-y economics perspective (and pundit-ing, but more for the former); and G. Elliott Morris's "Strength in Numbers" Substack, as I feel that he's carrying on with the deep dive poll data analysis angle that Nate Silver started with 538, and abandoned to become a bad take Twitter pundit. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 12:50, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- Well, VOA is dead. Note that the last news they posted on their site is dated March 15th of this year. You can still get the BBC World Service via SiriusXM, but well, how long until they drop underwear'?
- Of the three Brit sources [well, I am a Brit...] I would say the Economist is going to be the most solid. The BBC has it's own biases; the main off the top-of-head being 'false balance' [though not as bad as it used to be]. Beeb has the advantage that it's one of the very few media orgs which has an organic 'global reach' of reporters, while others have a dependence on AP/Reuters [which can be hit by MAGA-censorship]. All three have the bonuses of not being privately owned. The BBC is a govt-owned [but 'hands off'] corp and the other two are trusts. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:20, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- It's tough to come up with something that: A) is a daily source (the Economist is ostensibly a weekly, though articles are published on the web daily); B) is in English (because I sadly suck at foreign languages); C) and covers the entire world reasonably well, not just the home country (this rules out most American legacy dailies). Al Jazeera is the only contender I can think of off the top of my head at the moment, and I'm "more attuned" to The Beeb's bias than Al Jazeera's bias. Also, The Beeb wins on RSS feed curation (at least when I set them up, the Economist has nothing useful to me, and the Guardian is way too chatty). 47.197.76.134 (talk) 13:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- However, all this makes me wonder 'does it matter much?' That if the majority of the Big Public are getting their news from the increasingly censored mainstream [or worse, social media drek] it doesn't matter that much if the 'intellectuals' are still getting decent news from other sources. In fact, it might help cement in the New Order because as the two 'narratives of the world' diverge, the ability of said intellectuals to persuade the Big Public will become harder and harder ['what you say about America's standing worsening? The networks tell us Trump's put us right on top again!' etc] and in response, MAGA can [and most likely, will] paint the 'consuming of foreign news' as vaguely unpatriotic or something.
- It's tough to come up with something that: A) is a daily source (the Economist is ostensibly a weekly, though articles are published on the web daily); B) is in English (because I sadly suck at foreign languages); C) and covers the entire world reasonably well, not just the home country (this rules out most American legacy dailies). Al Jazeera is the only contender I can think of off the top of my head at the moment, and I'm "more attuned" to The Beeb's bias than Al Jazeera's bias. Also, The Beeb wins on RSS feed curation (at least when I set them up, the Economist has nothing useful to me, and the Guardian is way too chatty). 47.197.76.134 (talk) 13:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- Of the three Brit sources [well, I am a Brit...] I would say the Economist is going to be the most solid. The BBC has it's own biases; the main off the top-of-head being 'false balance' [though not as bad as it used to be]. Beeb has the advantage that it's one of the very few media orgs which has an organic 'global reach' of reporters, while others have a dependence on AP/Reuters [which can be hit by MAGA-censorship]. All three have the bonuses of not being privately owned. The BBC is a govt-owned [but 'hands off'] corp and the other two are trusts. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:20, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- The big question is what they do regarding sources intended for 'elite' audiences. To some extent, it don't matter one jot if we get force-fed ProleFeed, but it does if you are say, in the upper ranks of business, finance, military etc. We already know they don't give a fuck about either science or governmental efficiency but well, businesspeople and financiers rely to a major extent having access to reliable, timely data and reportage. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- As a comparison... I don't think America is anywhere near a China Great Firewall scenario, but it's worth exploring that just to see how "elites" operate there.
- For access: My "general impression" there was that as long as you toe the party line, there was some degree of "tolerance" of the ways to bypass the "Great Firewall" blockades. But this automatically separates people (at least, Internet consumers) into "haves" / "have nots" category, and probably is an irritant even among the "elites" if the block impedes on business. (Not quite "elite" level, but from a programmer perspective, I know that in the 2010s Github was blocked. This irritated China IT. From what I understand, it is not universally blocked anymore, only select pages that try to use Github to bypass China censorship.)
- Regardless of access, the impression I have is pretty much *all* news sources in China are "massaged" by the government. There is no free speech. The top "for the business" daily seems to be Caixin, and it perhaps has a little more leeway/flexibility in reporting than, say, China Daily. But it is hardly free of "the government tentacle". I don't know what China business people think of this situation, unfortunately! (I wouldn't be happy personally.)
- Now, I do consider the Chinese authoritarians, as shitty as they are, to have far more intellectual rigor than the MAGA. That's the interesting thing about this current "authoritarian movement" in the United States: it seems like MAGA is going out of its way to elevate charlatans, conspiracy theorists, and failed trust fund babies. Sure, they are all mostly elite by net worth, but they are the upper class twit sect that is far from elite in intellect. I don't think they give a rats ass about "reliable sources for making decisions", frankly. Trump wouldn't be fucking with the Fed or doing stupid tariff moves if he cared about this sort of thing. Will this anti-intellectualism currently really dominating the GOP hurt the US in the long run? Probably, unfortunately... In more ways than news (look what's happening in science and education for instance... does anyone seriously think that someone fueled by PragerU could compete with anyone who got educated in an actual school?)
- Right now, as an example, I do consider the Wall Street Journal to be tainted by MAGA enough to where (yet another British source!) I would trust FT far more personally for business / financial news. (Not that the WSJ hasn't pushed back on Trumpism some, but...) 47.197.76.134 (talk) 16:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- The big question is what they do regarding sources intended for 'elite' audiences. To some extent, it don't matter one jot if we get force-fed ProleFeed, but it does if you are say, in the upper ranks of business, finance, military etc. We already know they don't give a fuck about either science or governmental efficiency but well, businesspeople and financiers rely to a major extent having access to reliable, timely data and reportage. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- The Verge, Wired, ProPublica, The Nation, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, and The Intercept are all pretty good. Some independent journalists who's works I'd recommend include Marisa Kabas, Ken Klippenstein, and Taylor Lorenz. Antares (talk) 21:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- NBC is still fine for now. As are AP News, PBS, and NPR, all three of which were targeted by Trump. Chillpilled (talk) 00:34, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
So is Charlie Kirk's killer Gryoper or Leftist[edit]
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People are pointing to him having a trans roommate and the language he was using etched in those bullets. I honestly stopped caring. 203.37.238.233 (talk) 03:07, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Sick_of_this_shit.
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I hope you all have these moments in your life[edit]
I went to the smokers' patio at my job, it was raining. I don't go out there to smoke, I go out there because everybody there is better at socializing, and fresh air is good. There are some cheap umbrellas stationed next to the patio door. I was standing under the doorway awning, a lady had her bag and umbrella, and got a little juggly at the door, asked me if I could hold the umbrella. So I did.
"Awww, (Torrent) is holding a hello kitty umbrella!' The implication is I'm a little girl, but my mom, sister in law, her sister and my niece actually like hello kitty, And I'm a big strong man, so I said
"Any time, I'm at least 3 apples tall" and one person cracked up so I said "You should see the underwear I've got on" and this guy, just lurking, usually makes insulting jokes about everyone says "Psh, hoity toity, (Torrent) is wearing underwear, ooh lah lah'. It was the first time I've seen such a clever and vulnerable joke out of the guy. He had it in him the whole time.
I snorted, and when we were working together later, he fucked up, and I said 'I'm glad I'm not the only guy who forgets a step now and again." And he told me "There's probably 73 ways to fuck up, and i bet I've done 72 of them' Old army guy.
I think, what I'm trying to say is, I am comfortable in my self, and a part of that lets other people joke without consequence. I've known a million people who would hear me say 'my underwear' and just pile pointless on a self effacing joke, I already made fun of myself, your worst is not better than mine. This improvised joke about wearing underwear at all being the hoity toity thing to do, implying he was not wearing underwear, which is as obvious He is wearing underwear as obvious I'm not wearing panties, objectively, the funniest followup that could be made.Torrent (talk) 09:47, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
- Mind you, it's Smurfs that are three apples tall. Ms. White (Her full name is Kitty White, she's British, and an aspiring pianist-- according to Sanrio, who should know) is five apples tall. She towers over those little blue guys. Kencolt (talk) 20:18, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
The people complaining about people saying "What about Gaza" is fair in hindsight but when they say stuff like what about the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, etc. there doing the exact same thing.[edit]
Now this might sound confusing, but I saw this video like a week ago: https://www.tiktok.com/@yoelandmari/video/7549367203758345502.
Now before you say anything else this video is one of my pet peeves people who complain about people giving a shit about Palestine but not places like Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Etc. But not talking about those places before and giving a shit to them so they cannot give shit about Palestine. This comment rebuttal's this well: "Not gonna lie this is a crazy take. Bc everyone that I’ve seen posts about Palestine, has also posted about Sudan, Congo, Somalia, and Yemen. But that just might be the people in my circle who post about Palestine they also post about the rest. But the intention with posting about those issues that US is already directly involved with and funding is to show that this is where our money to going to, mass murdering families and children. Idk don’t you think at least the US should pull money out of those international conflicts and put our money where our mouth is. I feel like Americans should at less decide where their taxes and money goes to. Charlie Kirk even said that Isreal is ethnic cleansing Palestinians. He demanded for transparency in the epistien case, for the full release of the files completely unredacted. He was literally going against Trump and Bibi in his final moments. Also the US is always seeming to bomb and start conflict with countries with resources they want for financial gain. Wtv but I just don’t understand when people from those countries take refuge in America and they rightfully so, criticize and speak out against our government and that makes you people upset.. isn’t that the whole point of democracy. We’re supposed to push our government to listen to us. They work for us..? Idk anymore". 1.43.239.16 (talk) 09:31, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Why_Just_Why.