Hey there. Just letting you know that in general trans people and their allies absolutely do not want to be the center of public attention like this. They didn’t ask for it.

You’re right, there’s no good reason everyone should be so completely focused on them as a group. But that wasn’t their choice. That was the choice Nazis made when the first books they burned were about gender and sexuality.

That was the choice Nazis made when they spent the last decade and the foreseeable future demonizing and discriminating against transgender people.

Not because they asked for it. Not because they deserve it. But because they are the easiest target. Small in numbers. Complex by nature. Difficult to understand for the uninformed and the disinformed. “Different.”

They don’t consider themselves the center of the universe. Bigots do. Bigots have decided that transgender issues should be the thing everyone cares about right now. If you want to blame anyone, blame them.

Not enough attention is given to the literal arms race we find ourselves in. Most big tech buzz is all “yay innovation!” Or “oh no, jobs!”

Don’t get me wrong, the impact AI will have on pretty much every industry shouldn’t be underestimated, and people are and will lose their jobs.

But information is power. Sun Tzu knew this a long time ago. The AI arms race won’t just change job markets - it will change global markets, public opinion, warfare, everything.

The ability to mass produce seemingly reliable information in moments - and the consequent inability to trust or source information in a world flooded by it…

I can’t find the words to express how dangerous it is. The long-term consequences are going to be on par with - and terribly codependent with - the consequences of the industrial revolution.

Anarchism uses democracy and consensus to make decisions

Genuine question: Is that not a democracy?

I’m guessing for all their talk about hating China, they’re really keen on China taking on the role the US has been playing since WWII, as they’re simultaneously doing their best to undermine the US dollar as the global reserve currency.

I’m genuinely having trouble understanding your comment then.

Who is “they” in the quote above?

You think that the CIA pretends to be an international aid organization for the sake of advancing the interests of checks notes… China? The 3-letter agency that has spent decades building and maintaining American hegemony is now serving that same purpose for a rival nation? And the people that have also spent decades building for this moment to take over the federal government entirely… want to now give their power away? … what?

Moral excuses aside, it’s money. Huge gaps means less material, one-size-fits-all installation, and arbitrary tolerances in production. Same reason the latches constantly break or get stuck - the whole setup is mass-produced as cheaply as possible.

But it’s not a good way to save money. On top of the obvious safety and privacy benefits, bathroom quality can completely change a person’ opinion of an establishment and is worth investing in.

Do you think these assaults are happening in crowded bathrooms? Or that other women will ignore an assault simply because the bathroom is unisex?

But where is the place where I can get a message like that and trust it as it is the norm in that social network? McLuhan said “The Medium is the Message”

I’m not sure this is possible on the internet in general. Even in the early days of facebook people were forced to grow suspicious of their old acquaintances reaching out to say hi only to be hit with some “be your own boss!” MLM schtick, and that was when you could be fairly confident the sender was a real person that you actually have known for some time. Not to mention how suspicious we all are of some of the “living my best life!” type of humble-brag posts that are really just sad people playing pretend.

Add a layer of anonymity and I’m just not sure genuine trust could ever be possible. Try to take away anonymity and you wander into the quagmire that is personal privacy and still can’t avoid the possibility of scams and compromised accounts.

I think that the Internet as a Medium simply cannot do what we have been trying to force it to do for years - serve as a good “third place” for socialization. Do people make friends here? Absolutely. But people make friends in the ICU, doesn’t mean we should install a bar there.

That’s very interesting. Do you know where I could learn more about that decision? I tried searching but its 2025 and any phrases I could think of just returned websites offering nearly identical collections of flag emojis…

As much as theists would claim that their morals were handed down from divinity, ultimately an athiest would understand those morals to be originally handed down from humans, and therefore humanistic.

Doesn’t mean they’re good morals of course, especially when corrupted by motives of power, but bad morals can be handed down by secular sources as well. The point being that theistic origins do not necessarily mean the morals themselves are flawed.

In any case, fundamentally the ethics of AA’s 12 steps are technically theistic in origin and nomenclature but humanistic in nature, in that they appear to really dig down into the psychology of humans in a way that deviates significantly from their christian roots.

According to Mercadante, however, the AA concept of powerlessness over alcohol departs significantly from Oxford Group belief. In AA, the bondage of an addictive disease cannot be cured, and the Oxford Group stressed the possibility of complete victory over sin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous

The original christian prayer group believed that through God, addiction could be cured. AA has maintained from the beginning that addiction cannot be cured - a recovering alcoholic is and always will be a recovering alcoholic. Faith in God alone will not deliver salvation because addiction is not sin, it is illness, and should be treated by more than just prayer.

It could be more complex than that. It could be an average number of vampires preying on an evolutionary disadvantage - hospitality. Vampires cannot cross a threshold uninvited, but Italians are famous for welcoming everyone and their mothers to dinner. It was a recipe for disaster until they found the holy bulb.

Ever wonder why Italy has crosses in every home? Why the Vatican formed there? Could it have been a long and storied history of the rise and fall of romans and religions? No. Vampires.

It was more obvious when they all had big bellies, but have you ever noticed that the Pope sitting in his white outfit and hat looks like unpeeled garlic?

Personally, I think both theories can be true. It is hard to corroborate dates for our records. Immortal bodies that burn away in sunlight pose some archaeological challenges.

But consider this:

What if Italy had a significantly higher number of vampires than normal? Before they learned the secrets of Allium, and faith, and a big wooden spoon always close at hand.

2075. A world where fast and foreign foods dot the Italian countryside. Faith has been abandoned, crosses discarded. Their traditions are forgotten. But their traditions have not forgotten them.

Only one grandmother remembers the past. Cross on the mantel. Big wooden spoon. Garlic in the sauce. One big dinner, every week. Everyone’s invited.

Coming soon to a theater near you:

Nonna: No Blood Before Supper

They want to use military planes because they can hide the cost of this program in the “whoops it’s too big to audit” defense budget. The cost of civilian contractors would be publically disclosed.

This person’s outright sadistic blindness or trolling aside, anyone reading this comment with good faith and not immediately having an aneurysm should remember that the once and current president once said, and I quote:

I like taking guns away early. Take the guns first, go through due process second.

I don’t believe I have treated you with hostility, but please forgive me if I have.

But I must ask - does “not voting” discredit the illusion of democracy? To who? How?

Do you think there is a meaningful number of people who currently believe the statement “American democracy is working” but would cease to believe that when faced with voter turnout statistics?

Not voting is absolutely both a symptom and a cause. How do you think we got here, if not by voting for the people who won the elections for the past century, and by not voting for the people who lost the elections?

Voting won’t fix the ruin that is the neo liberal project and the debt its forced us into.

Again, almost everyone knows that. For most “radicalized” people that are actually doing things, voting is openly acknowledged as a stalling tactic designed to give us more time to do what must be done for real change.

What exactly will not voting do? Who will face the consequences of not voting? Who will be helped? Who will be harmed? Do you honestly think the wealthy will be harmed by you not voting?

I never said that, nor did I ever think that. But you have made clear that this discussion is unwanted, and I will respect that and say no more on it. Farewell.

Did you? To me? Where?

Please don’t feel that the best thing you can do is shut up! You deserve a voice in the matter, even if it is much harder for you to use it the way others can use theirs.

Besides, not everyone can always be or even needs to always be the person who spreads the message. We need people to help figure out what the problems and solutions are just as much as we need people to share those problems and solutions with the world.

It is usually a necessary evil that we have marketers to sell the things that wouldn’t exist without the engineers to produce them.

I already told you what I didn’t agree with and why I didn’t agree with it several times

I didn’t and still don’t see any explanations for why you disagree, other than “being athiest” which I do not believe is sufficient explanation in and of itself. There are plenty of athiests who find reasons to agree or disagree on this topic beyond that single belief.

I apologize if my approach seems insistent that you need to agree with me. I only wanted to explore the topic further, and am happy to discontinue that if the desire is not reciprocated. Farewell.