TranscendentalEmpire
@TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
- Comment on YSK: The US massacred hundreds & raped children as young as 12 in one day. Only one perpetrator was convicted - later commuted by President Nixon. 5 days ago:
It’s a tale as old as time, no one wants to fight for a future that doesn’t advance their own personal positions.
How would a center right politician afford a vacation home in the hamptons if we actually regulated their corporate relationships? What good is a general if there isn’t a forever war?
- Comment on YSK: The US massacred hundreds & raped children as young as 12 in one day. Only one perpetrator was convicted - later commuted by President Nixon. 6 days ago:
It’s historically the only effective way to fight an insurgency and every military since ancient times knows it. Basically anytime you hear a modern military is enacting a “counter insurgency” it’s either code word for doing death squads, or it’s a tacit admission that they are out of ideas and have found themselves in an unwinnable quagmire.
The only way to defeat an insurgency is to do massive amounts of crimes against humanity…or avoid creating one in the first place.
- Comment on That's how the world works. 1 week ago:
Ehh… We kinda missed the boat on that by like a hundred years. Even before the Haber process allowed us to allocate ammonia chemically, we had started to worse and worse famine pop up globally. We just have more people on earth than the natural nitrogen cycle can support through agricultural means.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
That was kinda my point about absolute equality. There will always be people with disabilities and therefore absolute equity and absolute meritocracies are mostly utopian philosophical concepts. Plus, if we’re doing idealist delights why bother with anything but luxury space communism?
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
Yes? I’m even friends with several queer people…shocking as that may be.
I even know a few conservative leaning gay dudes, our gay district has a gaybar specifically for cowboys. Even they don’t hate or discriminate against flamboyant gay men. They might not seek their company or want anything to do with that particular scene, but they are still neighborly.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
disclaimed explicitly that I don’t believe that speakers who use the phrase “toxic masculinity” believe that masculinity per se is toxic
And did I accuse you of doing so?
while I was writing, somebody else left a comment that does indeed interpret it that way.
Yes, lemmy has a pretty established history of harboring a lot of misogynistic users which do not reflect the thoughts of everyday normal people.
I don’t think we should be moderating our own behavior to satisfy people acting in bad faith or to the temper of bigots.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
Imo an absolute meritocracy would first require a society of absolute equity. Otherwise how would you know if someone is actually more inherently better at something or if they just had more opportunity?
I think meritocracies are a nice idea, but they’ve mostly been supported by societal elites throughout history because they know it’s easy to score when you’re born on third base.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
How did I misconstrue your statement?
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
But let’s not give 'em a head start by using words that consistently turn off our audience, eh? In my experience, “privilege” and “toxic masculinity” do just that.
Because the well funded rightwing think tanks have already started them…
people using “evil homosexuals” don’t need to add the “evil,” because they’re bigots who believe that homosexuality is evil. Likewise, the people who use “toxic masculinity” don’t need to add the “toxic,” because they’re bigots who believe that masculinity is toxic.
I use toxic masculinity and I don’t think masculinity is inherently toxic?
And I don’t think a significant amount of people think masculinity by itself is toxic by itself. Otherwise everyone would be force femming their husbands, or hating any trans men choosing to express themselves.
The only people who seem to be interpreting toxic masculinity as an implication of masculinity as a whole are people who seem to think all maledom is under siege.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
“Aren’t big fans” is not the same as being bigoted, or discriminating against…
Do think there are some Lincoln Republic gays out their thinking Tommy is going to hell, not because he’s queer, but because he sashays too hard?
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
That would imply it’s the gay community itself that is not accepting flamboyant gays…
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
Nuance also exists…
Also it’s not really a competition when only one group is being oppressed.
Or are you claiming men are being oppressed by the system that was created and operated by men?
My whole point is that women are systemically being targeted by a system created by men, specifically because they are women. While men are being negatively affected by a system built by men because of reasons besides their sex.
I’m not claiming men do not experience hardship that is unique to their sex, it’s just not specifically being done to them because of their sex.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
Nah. Many, many people who come from inside that peivilege are being naive. To think they’re trying to defend the privilege itself is exactly the problem coming from outside the blinders.
Eh, I would say there are some people who are naive enough to not realize their own privileges. However, that itself is only possible because there are whole media systems coaching the reflective defense of their privilege in the first place.
The “evil homosexuals” comment is trying to elucidate you to that reality for crying out loud, but noooo, you just want to make yourself feel better by pretending your choice of words cannot be perceived the same way…
Lol, I was just remarking on how the modification of words with negative descriptors doesn’t reallyatter when the ideas behind the concept were bigoted to begin with.
Your attitude is part of the problem.
Yes, it’s the actions of people of color who made us this way… I’ve heard that before.
Failure to communicate is a two way street, and you arguing the exact same phrasing is somehow magically not problematic from your side while being problematic from the other is exactly the issue OC’s talking about.
I don’t really see how I am…? My whole point was that if we stopped using terms that bigoted people dislike and made up new ones, the new words would just end up being disliked by bigoted people.
Stop being OK with creating in groups and out groups by such simple terms as “white” or “homosexual”.
First of all… I can’t “other” white people as a whole, I’m not powerful enough to innact systemic racial programs, nor would I want to. The term white privilege is used to describe the systemic advantages white people have enacted over hundreds of years in this country.
Secondly… Nothing I said can be interpreted as attempting to “other” homosexuals? The only time I refreced homosexuals was when I said someone willing to use a sentence that includes “evil homosexuals” wouldn’t be made better by removing the “evil” part. For a hyperbolic example if I said “the evil homosexuals did 9/11” wouldn’t be made better if I just said “the homosexuals did 9/11”.
. If you want to other someone simply living their life, especially over differences they didn’t even ask for, then you’re still part of the problem.
Something tells me you didn’t stray too far away from your conservative upbringing…
I might not have white privilege, but I am still privileged when compared to the rest of the world, and I have no qualms about recognizing that. Anyone living in a rich nation is privileged when compared to the vast majority of the world that suffers in poverty. I didn’t ask for that, but I still recognize it as a problem that we need to address.
Maybe you are feeling a little insecure, and maybe that’s a problem you should think about?
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
cis straight white males is that they don’t have to deal with racism, sexism, and bigotry over who they are and who they love
How does that racism materially present itself? With racism it’s by decades of economic support and government programs aimed at creating wealth for a certain ethnicity over another. With sex it’s decades of reinforcing gender roles and denying educational opportunities for women. Rules about race mixing were created to deny a dilution of the ethnic collective of political power.
That’s not a zero sum game. We can all have that privilege. That privilege isn’t what causes bigotry.
I would argue that it shouldn’t be a privilege, but a universal right.
But for the most part we’re fighting in large part for equal good treatment. It’s not a zero sum game.
I think you might want to look up the definition of privilege. You can’t be privileged unless someone is being disadvantaged. If you want to get rid of privilege then what you’re saying is you want everyone to be treated the same.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
Women
- economic inequality
- unpaid labor and caregiving
- gender based violence
- greater healthcare discrepancies
- professional and political barriers
- education barriers
Do you see the discrepancies between the two list? Everything you listed is something that we men either do to ourselves, or is done to us by a political/economic entity that is dominated by other males. The same can’t be said for list for women.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
I think you’re running into a little cognitive dissonance. In this scenario, the privilege is what is causing the disadvantage in the first place. You cannot be privileged in a truly equal society, therefore you can’t elevate everyone to a privileged class, you can only equal the playing field.
It’s a zero sum game.
- Comment on How possibly? 1 week ago:
fight over the definition of the word privilege. C’mon, let’s just ditch the word, ferchrissakes! Keep the concept, call it something more relatable!
I think it’s naive to believe whatever terminology you use as an alternative wouldn’t eventually end up with the same stigma.
The people who interpret it as “masculinity is toxic” aren’t doing it because they have a hearing disability, they interpret it that way as a means to justify their own beliefs.
The same goes for your example of “evil homosexuals”. Anyone who is blaming all homosexuals for something does not have to modify them with the term evil for you to know they are being a bigot.
I don’t think it’s people fighting for social justice who get unreasonably attached to words. I think that describes the people who feign an inability to utilize context or reason when they hear them.
- Comment on YSK that Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, scientists, government officials. Everyone was terrified. 1 week ago:
I think you could make the same argument with just about any economic policy. Free market capitalism has never existed in reality and every time it was attempted, it turned out to be an abstract of colonial imperialism.
It ends up billions of apes are hard to govern in a way that excludes usery and violence.
- Comment on A communist and an anarchist walk into a bar.. 1 week ago:
I am aware, but in any kind of debate in an open forum you should avoid any position that assumes a preconceived notion. I’m not saying everyone needs to submit a works cited page, but at least giving a brief summary of the events you are using to support your argument helps eliminate any kind of miscommunication.
- Comment on A communist and an anarchist walk into a bar.. 1 week ago:
It applies to both statements. Ideally they would have posted examples of anarchists who sided with leftist and were killed afterwards, and you would have cited examples of anarchist siding with capitalists and then being betrayed.
Tbf there are probably examples of both scenarios, as anarchist by their own nature aren’t exactly a unified political body.
- Comment on A communist and an anarchist walk into a bar.. 2 weeks ago:
Usually when you make a claim it’s up to you to support it with some kind of evidence.
Asking someone to refute something they disagree with is basically asking someone to prove a negative.
- Comment on 18-26 year olds, How do you plan to dodge the draft? 2 weeks ago:
When the US goes to war the recruitment waivers get really liberal. I think the only thing that’s automatically disqualifying are serious violent felonies and cases involving sexual assault.
- Comment on 18-26 year olds, How do you plan to dodge the draft? 2 weeks ago:
Yeah… As someone who grew up on military bases, mental ailments do not exclude you from the service.
- Comment on Can I assemble a metal building by myself? 3 weeks ago:
You might be able to do it by yourself, but it would prob be a lot easier if you have a helping hand when spanning the supports.
It also depends on what you’re wanting to do with it. If you’re just parking a car or a boat in there I’ve seen people just use a gravel foundation with concrete footers. But, if you are wanting to make it a functional workspace you may want to pour an actual foundation.
- Comment on "Being vegan is unnatural" 4 weeks ago:
Lol, there are several comments on this post specifically talking about castration. Simply highlighting one aspect of the paradigm does not mean you condone the other, nor does it mean people are ignoring it.
Sexual violence against women is spoken more about because it is much more common than with men. One out of five women are victims or rape or rape attempts, comparatively only one out of thirty-one men have experienced the same. The same goes for cattle, as the vast majority of cattle are females.
Simply stating that fact does not mean people do not care about sexual violence towards men, nor would someone who cares about the suffering of animals condone the morality of the practices in the meat industry when it comes to male cows.
- Comment on "Being vegan is unnatural" 4 weeks ago:
I would say that’s an example of perfect being the enemy of good. If someone is making a conscious effort to moderate their consumption of meat then how can that be a bad thing when compared to the vast majority of people who make no effort at all?
Any amount of effort is better than not trying at all. Plus, is wager that the majority of people transition into vegetarianism/veganism, and this may be the first step of that journey. Why would anyone be critical of these people when there are people whose main caloric intake is meat?
- Comment on We're just scanning for the bear... 4 weeks ago:
It’d be nice to be able to walk down a street without making other people uncomfortable because men in general are less assholish than bears.
Eh… The vast majority of encounters with bears are generally with black bears where both sides are usually just scared of each other and scamper away.
I think most men just lack the perspective of just how vulnerable women are compared to men. Imagine if you lived in a world where you were surrounded by dudes the size of your average NFL lineman, and a non insignificant percent of them have a history of sexual violence towards someone your size… You too might be nervous walking in the dark by yourself.
I am 6’3 with a cut weight around 245lb and I have to be mindful about how I carry myself, or how closely I walk near people to not make people of any sex uncomfortable. There’s a reason a big jolly guy is a stereotype, no one is comfortable around a large dude with an attitude.
- Comment on YSK that everything the New York Times about Donald Trump actually happened 1 month ago:
I don’t think many people really blame journalists so much as they blame the news media corporations that employ them.
Yes, if you are well informed and are actively looking for this type of journalism it’s widely available. However, you also have to know how to sift through the mountains of articles that conflict with this article run and promoted by the same organization.
The problem is that these companies are essentially advertising platforms whose motivations are not based in journalistic integrity, but to maintain user engagement.
But instead, the american public prefered to trust influencers such as Joe Rogan, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson.
I think this is an inherent reaction to be expected when people lack trust in mainstream institutions. You can’t expect people to not seek alternative knowledge when what you see around you does not reflect the story being sold over the television.
Trust in institutions can take decades to build, and all these inconsistencies with reality can eat away at that trust in a much shorter period of time. When the tickers on the bottoms of the screen constantly tell you the economy is doing better than ever and you’re having to work overtime to put food on the table. When every news outlet is agreeing with the president about invading a country because they have weapons of mass destruction. With decades of these conflicts with reality… of course people are going to seek alternative sources of information.
- Comment on If you receive a high medical bill, don't pay it immediately. Ask for an itemized bill first. 1 month ago:
For now… With the rise of right winged parties in Europe it would not surprise me if they start chipping away at universal care.
- Comment on If you receive a high medical bill, don't pay it immediately. Ask for an itemized bill first. 1 month ago:
The games that hospitals and medical providers play with bills is unreal.
As a medical provider at a hospital I can attest that we really have little to no control over any of your medical billing. Not saying that mistakes don’t happen, we are dealing with tens of thousands of people and billing departments usually have a lot of employee turnaround.
That being said, the vast majority of things like duplicate bills, incorrect bills, and redundant documentation is a byproduct of dealing with private insurance companies.
Even if we’ve already done a prior authorization the insurance company can suddenly decide that we didn’t provide the exact right information, or that we didn’t have the right type of referral, or even used the wrong color of ink pen… They can deny a claim, which usually will prompt the billing department to automatically send you guys a bill. At which point you guys call us understandably upset, which prompts us to start the whole authorization process over again.
Dealing with Medicare and especially Medicaid is so easy compared to private insurance, as they have a very clear motive to erect as many reasons to deny or delay coverage as possible. The entire reason the American healthcare system is so archaic and management heavy is because we have to deal with private insurance.
I can guarantee the medical providers hate the situation more than anyone. The day after the United ceo got assassinated was one of the more jolly days I’ve seen at the hospital for years. It was almost unreal to hear my older and very uptight professional colleagues crack jokes about a man being murdered in provider meetings.