Broadly speaking, you probably agree with the large majority of the views commonly attributed to whichever group you identify with - what are the exceptions? Something that if you mention without a caveat immediately makes people jump to conclusions or even attack you?
I don’t like neopronouns
Believing in facts and reality over ideology and idealism.
And as an extension of that, focusing what people do, not what they say they do or want to do.
I don’t identify myself with any side in politics. Why pick a side when every side is shit.
You can also just pick and choose what you want from each and every side, and leave what you don’t like on the table.
Like a buffet.
But people tend to get really really angry at you when you do this, and label you whatever side they hate most.
Religion and spirituality, broadly considered, are not inherently evil. That organized religion can justify great evils is a function of human weakness, nothing more.
Then again, this is coupled with a ‘there is no god but that we create ourselves/god has no material existence, but is no less powerful for that’’ POV, which is admittedly a weird one that I’ve been pulling at for a bit. Nothing to do with the nature of our reality or first causes, everything to do with our relationship to reality.
Came here to comment on the religion part. Humans are biologically programmed to be in a tribe and we need an “other” and we need a bad guy. On its own religion could be a neutral or a good thing, but it fits that need for tribalism and a common enemy and feeling superior. It’s the same mindset as nationalism or racism or when fans of sports teams riot and beat the shit out of each other for no reason. If religion never existed humanity would have just discovered some other way to segregate ourselves, feel superior, order each other around with arbitrary rules even the in group can’t agree on, and isolate and kill those who don’t comply. Add in manipulative people who are all too eager to hop into leadership roles and use them for their own power and selfish gain and you have pure evil, but it’s the system, not the religion, that’s a distraction.
Truth of the matter is people who aren’t religious always have a proxy for religion in their lives, which they irrationally worship.
And they are often prepared to justify evil towards others in defense of that proxy and use it to justify their social and moral superiority to those that don’t hold to it the way they believe they do.
It’s just how human beings are. But a lot of them are in rampant denial of it if you confront them over it.
Its amazing all the different groups that want to hate, and argue, when someone admits that they believe in God.
It has a lot to do with religious folks labeling themselves as an oppressed minority while being an overwhelming majority with tremendous power worldwide, especially in political leadership. For Christians, it’s an immediate reflex response to what religious folks don’t recognize is blasphemy, bringing up religion as the answer to a question nobody asked. I recognize that I just posted an America-default comment.
You’re forgetting the fact that many Christian sects are minorities and often sects hate/persecute each other, especially historically. Christianity comes in about 45,000 flavors. And many of them are radically different from each other.
And if you’re not a member of one of those specific groups they all look pretty much the same, and express the behavior I described in my comment. They may use their “minority” status as a predicate to making war with each other, but that wasn’t what I was talking about.
Do all Asian people look the same to you too?
Some of us see how much damage magical thinking has done to humanity and the planet, I guess.
Dont carry that misunderstanding always. Believing in God =/ religion. Man made religion is what youre think of. It may not sound right to you, but God isnt about “religion” at all, but people certainly are.
Dont blame it on God, blame it on man’s lack of understanding/misunderstanding. Just because someone does something “in the name of God” doesnt mean it was God’s will, and by past accounts, is usually just an excuse to do what depravity one desires.
I don’t “blame God,” because that would be like blaming Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
And no I’m not just talking about man made religion, I’m talking about magical thinking.
It’s all man made, btw, but I honestly don’t feel like having that conversation with you today.
Phew…
It’s all man made, btw, but I honestly don’t feel like having that conversation with you today.
Proof of God right there.
Im kidding…
Sorry mate, I just find it important to believe true things.
I’m bullish on open borders. Not lack of sovereignty, and all fully documented. But if people are emigrating/immigrating “illegally”, there’s only one real solution. Tightening borders only benefits the well-off and slavers. Poor people are well aware it is possible to be poor in an MEDC. And mostly colder.
I am a socialist in a “small” party in rural most conservative not fascist state of my nation. Soo the answer is: yes
But ironicly talking with 60+ about the topics they all agree and say they would vote for me but then between 20 year olds and gen X, complete disagreement (eventhough what i want to change is what they are complaining about) And its not just policies just my lifestyle is mocked in all kinds of ways and im just like…cooking from stratch for example used to be the way of life here…about which these villagers (intended) constantly say “city people dont know how to XYZ” but then them buying soup stocks and plastic packed meat from the supermarket instead of the butcher/cutting up the meat yourself and doing it yourself.
Its a real mystery to me. But i guess you cant argue with stupid
Maybe calling people stupid is part of it?
People like to vote for relatable candidates. Someone that represents them. If I were a local “villager”, I’d probably expect someone to know what cooking from scratch is.
I’m a Democrat who values the 2nd amendment and doesn’t think we should just ban guns in the U.S. Stronger regulations and safety measures? Sure, absolutely. But I do think people should have the right to own and use firearms for recreation, hunting, personal protection, etc.
I think you’ll find that most people by a wide margin agree that prohibition of anything generally doesn’t work, and what they are looking for is regulations and enforcement.
I know plenty of people on the Left who want to ban guns, European-style. They think anyone who owns one is partially psychopathic and have a fetish about killing things. You’re right, they’re probably in the minority, but I question by just how much. I don’t think they’re as fringe as some people would like to believe.
Personal firearms ownership is legal in Europe.
There are a lot of vocal anti gun nuts out there though.
Where I live, mentioning you own, or would like to own a gun, gets you labeled as a fascist Nazi/proto murderer. That’s regardless of all your other beliefs or political positions.
And there’s a fair amount of 2a absolutists out there too.
I’m a leftist and think the only real way we see change to gun laws is if Republicans more often become targets.
I agree up to the point where the amendment is pointed at as disallowing reasonable regulation. If that’s the case, end 2A. But my goal is regulation, not abolishment. If 2A folks (mainly the Supreme Court here) can accept regulation existing in parallel with 2A, then I’m happy.
I’m mainly thinking about preventing school shootings and domestic violence and murder, so restrictions of some sort on mental health / violent history.
Isolationism. I completely reject the idea that my country’s (the US) military interventionism is in any way driven by benevolence, or makes life better either for Americans (outside of war profiteers) or for the people of the country we’re fucking with.
This is really controversial on here, for some reason. The fact that I want to leave other countries alone and focus on investing in schools and hospitals and public transit instead of bombs and tanks (I don’t even really care if it’s being spent domestically or abroad, so long as it’s being spent on good things instead of bad things) causes a bunch of people to call me a “tankie” and say that I’m just as bad as a fascist. All because I say shit like, that I don’t want to start shit with North Korea. I don’t even give a shit about North Korea. Like, I just watched how Afghanistan played out and went, “You know, we probably shouldn’t do shit like that again,” and supposedly left-leaning people really, really hate me for it. It’s genuinely bizarre. I even got attacked once for defending Biden pulling out of Afghanistan! People just love sticking our nose in other countries’ business, for reasons I can’t even begin to understand.
Probably being an absolutist instead of considering case-by-case leaves room for criticism.
In your example, Biden pulling out of Afghanistan. Was it wrong to intervene in the first place, probably? But pulling out at that point caused the deaths of western allies and handed victory to the Taliban, causing millions to suffer eg. women can’t get jobs and single-mother families starve to death… and it was entirely foreseeable.
I would argue that Humanitarian Intervention should be excluded, and certain UN-led actions (although the bureaucracy has certainly led to interventions occurring after mass deaths, unfortunately).
But pulling out at that point caused the deaths of western allies and handed victory to the Taliban, causing millions to suffer eg. women can’t get jobs and single-mother families starve to death… and it was entirely foreseeable.
That’s a completely ridiculous and absurd position. They did not “hand victory to the Taliban,” the Taliban won victory over 20 years of fighting and the withdrawal merely acknowledged that fact, a fact which Americans seem to have deluded themselves into thinking was anything but inevitable, and they really didn’t like their delusions being shattered. The embargo, not the withdrawal, is what’s caused most of the suffering. As the band Flobots said in 2007, “We already lost the wars they keep waging.” Somehow, in spite of over another decade of accomplishing absolutely nothing, people seem, if anything, more willing to keep fighting the pointless, hopeless battle.
What is the alternative to the withdrawal? Please, provide an answer to that question. Do you think if we stayed there another 20 years, then we could leave and our puppet regime wouldn’t instantly collapse? Or should we have just stayed there inevitably, even sending our grandchildren to go fight in that stupid pointless war?
The only thing that you said that’s correct is that on day 1 of the war, we should not have gone in. But on day 2, we also should’ve left. On day 3 we should have left. On day 300 we should’ve left. On day, what was it even, 7000? On day 7000, we absolutely, 10000% should’ve left. What possible reason could you use to justify delaying it further? What could we do in another 300 days that we couldn’t do in 7000? At that point, you’re just arguing for making it a permanent war of conquest.
Your problem, and the problem of everyone who thinks like you, is that you’re incapable of facing reality and accepting that sometimes good decisions are painful. When an alcoholic decides to go clean, what do you think that first day is like? Is it pleasant? Of course not. They may be irritable, they may have to have awkward conversations or confrontations with their drinking buddies, they may even lose friendships over it! But it’s still the right decision, the important thing is that they stopped. This is the same way. Yes, the immediate effects of pulling out may have been unpleasant, but you have to be very short-sighted to not recognize it as an obviously correct and necessary decision. Y’all just see the unpleasantness and say, “Everything’s been shitty since I decided to quit, I should just have another drink.”
Even the government we propped up told us to leave! How can you possibly justify continuing the occupation? And how can I possibly view you as anything but a warmongering imperialist for taking that stance? You’re talking about murdering people! Do you even realize that?
If a Taliban victory was inevitable, this is yeah totally true. The “rip off the bandaid” approach.
The question of how long it takes to peacefully handover power in a colony is an interesting one. It can be an absurd amount of time, may never be 100%, or it may never be peaceful, if resentment persists. I think it is possible, but we may differ there.
It’s certainly hard to justify the long-term cost to American life, expenditure, energy and focus to attempt beneficial cultural change on the other side of the world.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, some things are actually better in Afghanistan, since 2021. Definite evidence that war is in fact, worse, generally, than even a very dickish government. Looking at the data, I might come down on your side, it’s tough.
WHO Health data overview for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Oh, I absolutely support “attempting beneficial cultural change on the other side of the world.” Go write a book, sing a song, make a movie, you can still do that, right now, nothing’s stopping you!
What I oppose is drone striking weddings halfway across the globe, kicking in doors and screaming at people in a language they don’t speak, classifying every “military aged male” as an enemy combatant even if they’re just a bystander to falsify your casualty reports, abducting innocent people indefinitely to secret torture dungeons without charge or trial, and that sort of thing. You know, things like, “forced rectal feeding without medical necessity.”
Like, have you looked into what the war actually, physically looked like for people? “Attempting beneficial cultural change,” what the hell are you talking about? Even if it wasn’t an extreme whitewashing of the situation, you don’t impose “beneficial” cultural change as an occupying force, at gunpoint! The only thing we did was make them hate us more.
By the way, do you know how we finally got bin Laden? It was by using a fake vaccination campaign to collect blood samples in Pakistan. You wanna talk about humanitarianism, do you have any idea how many people could die, how many preventable diseases we could fail to eradicate, if people in developing countries mistrust vaccination drives because the CIA uses them as cover? But you know, at least our lust for revenge was satisfied. (Speaking of, the US also promoted anti-vax conspiracy theories in the Philippines, during COVID, to keep them from relying on Chinese vaccines.)
Yawn.
We Americans used to at least try not to look for “foreign monsters abroad”. I was raised on that sort of old fashioned idea. Do you ever feel like an impossible person from a land that never existed?
I remember growing up in the 90’s and it being fairly common to think that there were no real enemies out in the world, that all the conflicts were over. “The end of history,” gets mocked a lot, but the idea of putting conflict behind us and working together towards a common cause of advancing together is something I really miss.
But if that period of relative peace had continued, then people would’ve started asking questions about why we’re still dumping more money into our military than the next 9 countries combined when the USSR no longer exists (to quote Terminator 2, “They’re our friends now”) and China such a big trading partner that nobody would dream of rocking the boat. And if people started asking those questions, it’d be real bad news for the war profiteers who make bank off that spending. And so it all went out the window, starting with the “war on terror,” and now the government’s trying to make us see everybody as a threat.
And so we can’t have nice things, like healthcare, we all have to tighten our belts so that we can make more tanks. I remember when that was seen as right-wing.
It still is a right wing position, but the trouble is not right or left specifically, it’s that the empire is overextended with its military obligations, the dollar has been badly debased, the US pays more in debt than its GDP, and despite all our spending, the US couldn’t possibly meet all of its military obligations if more than one big thing happened at a time. The dollar is still the world reserve currency, but only because there’s not yet a credible replacement.
The sad fact is that instead of minding our business, America wanted to be an empire - and empires have a pretty standard lifecycle. I don’t think it’s a question of if, but when, it goes the way of Spain and GB.
I believe privately owned cars and on-street parking should be banned in cities, except for very few regulated exceptions, and replaced with municipal car sharing.
Having children is borderline unethical given the capitalist hellscape they will be born into, the relatively high likelihood that they will not be able to live to old age due to risk of large parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable with climate change, and considering that reduced birth rates is the most ethical path to a lower population on the planet, which, though technically not a strict requirement of a greener future, certainly makes it a lot easier.
No shade for any kids living today or parents who choose to have them despite the above. I understand why people do it and I don’t blame anyone for it. But it is worth pointing out that current birth rates in most countries are not sustainable, and the seemingly constant fearmongering about falling birthrates in places where it’s low needs to go away. Yes, it’s bad for the economy if the new generation is smaller than their parents. That’s a problem with the system and its design (one of many), and not at all a rationale for having kids.
I will be honest, I held this same view for many years and still agree with it on the face of it but there were two things that people said to me that softened my view.
- We need good people to make more good people. (Apparently my friends think I’m a good person. Weird)
- There be dragons in our society but what good are dragons without dragon slayers?
Obviously these weren’t the only factors but they both really resonated with me. My first dragon slayers is due this month
The trick here I think is parenting in a way that passes along whatever good you may have to your child. Unfortunately (or fortunately, in some cases) the moral compass and general ethics of the parents don’t always translate to the kid. How to do that effectively is a whole other psychological debate. Either way, congrats and best of luck!
Mostly agree with you. I think the parents that agree with you should feel some regret though.
The trouble is, if all the considerate people who don’t want kids don’t have kids, the only people left will be the kids of the kids that did want kids.
That Lemmy can be just as bigoted, hostile, and close-minded as the sites it set out to replace; it drives out views which aren’t in line with the gestalt majority. This thread, then, mostly gets answers which are on the mildest end because those who actually hold opinions out of step with the majority know damn well not to speak up, or, well… be immediately othered.
in my experience that’s especially true of certain instances, but not others. mostly along ideological lines.
Care to provide specific examples? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just curious as to what things about this place that you consider to be “bigoted”. Because my experience has been that the opinions that aren’t tolerated here are themselves the bigoted opinions.
Because my experience has been that the opinions that aren’t tolerated here are themselves the bigoted opinions.
This is a tautology. All you are saying here is ‘anything i declared bigoted shouldn’t be tolerated’.
other people may not agree with your interpretation of bigoted. I see all sorts of hateful bigoted crap on here, it’s just about what group it’s targeting. I got banned from Autism community because I pointed out their bigoted hatred of ‘normies’ was messed up and many members there had a weird superiority complex about autism.
Yeahs and people are on good behavior in posts like this. The “lemmy” doesn’t come out as much.
Oh man, to test this, just go somewhere and defend women. You’ll be destroyed.
gender war bullshit is bullshit.
lemmy is full of anti-men threads. there was a massive one a few days ago with 100s of comments. is that pro-woman?
I don’t know, personally I’m against anti-whatever nonsense. I’m not in any camp, but I will point out my gendered life experiences, because the often go against the popular grain of gender essentialism that many people are conceptual wedded to.
Turns out that people are assholes regardless of platform
I think trans athletes should be able to compete only in their assigned gender at birth category, if the sport is gender-segregated.
I think sports governing bodies should be able to determine this for themselves and their particular sport. But that’s a little too pragmatic for a lot of folks.
But yeah, this gets you labeled an anti-trans bigot these days. Despite the fact practically speaking the particularities are involve really can’t be generalized. In some cases there will be a unfair advantage, in others, not.
Yeah, I got into a discussion on this topic and my suggestion is that sports split on other categories, not just gender. Boxing already does weight classes, which is good, more sports should do that. Can’t we have sports for people under 5’8"? I’m sure there’s lots of shortkings who’d love to compete seriously in a league where there height wasnt an detriment.
This approach seemed to offend both sides of the trans sports debate.
I don’t think that those are the same position.
Let’s update our understanding and use other more meaningful categories that better reflect people’s lived experiences is a good idea. Let’s confine our understanding and hold people in rigid categories that often do not match their lived experiences is not.
John Oliver also has a good segment on this topic, if you’re interested.
Also, one could listen to someone such as Erin in the morning to understand the context of the anti-trans sports campaign.
Some of what Erin describes here is that much of the current anti-trans efforts are being funded and pushed by many of the same religious fundamentalist groups that previously pushed “defense of marriage” campaigns and and legislation against gay people.
The market research that these groups have used since losing that debate have shown them that religious arguments against inclusion are generally unpopular. So now they’ve made a very deliberate, and rather successful, effort to repackage their agenda through the sports topic instead.
Yes, but the thing you’re missing is how much of USA culture is tied up in sports. Including college admissions through popular team sports. This topic hits a lot broader because it’s about sports, and shitloads of money.
Hence nobody cares if there are trans people in niche sports with no money. For example, I mountain bike. Nobody cares, because mountain biking is increidbly niche and there zero money in and and there are like 13 NCAA mountain biking teams in the country… and if you win a competitive mtb race you win like $100.
But if it’s Basketball… we’re talking billions of dollars.
I come from a family of many female athletes. They aren’t anti trans or anti-religion But they are anti-trans women in women’s sports. They believe in a separate trans/non-gender category, but that’s not a solution trans-advocates want. They want trans women to be in women’s sports, and not men’s sports. (and of course, nobody cares about trans men)
Transgender ladies who are on oestrogen and testosterone blockers aren’t any stronger or faster than cis ladies.
Gender-affirming care massively reduces the difference, but transwomen are still likely to be faster than AFAB women:
Prior to gender affirming hormones, transwomen performed 31% more push-ups and 15% more sit-ups in 1 min and ran 1.5 miles 21% faster than their female counterparts. After 2 years of taking feminising hormones, the push-up and sit-up differences disappeared but transwomen were still 12% faster. Prior to gender affirming hormones, transmen performed 43% fewer push-ups and ran 1.5 miles 15% slower than their male counterparts. After 1 year of taking masculinising hormones, there was no longer a difference in push-ups or run times, and the number of sit-ups performed in 1 min by transmen exceeded the average performance of their male counterparts.
But what season you’re born in also influences your strength and fitness:
There were significant main effects of birth-month for cardiorespiratory fitness (F=4.54, p<0.001), strength (F=6.81, p<0.001) and power (F=3.67, p<0.001). Children born in November were fitter and more powerful than those born at other times, particularly the summer months (April, May and June). October-born children were stronger than those born in all months except September and November. This relationship was evident despite controlling for decimal age and despite no significant inter-month differences in anthropometric characteristics.
So maybe it’s not fair for all those poor summer babies to compete against unfairly blessed autumn athletes?
There’s enough biological diversity that fairness is basically an illusion anyway. I don’t care enough about sports to have a strong opinion. I think it’s fine to say giving up competitive sports is a cost of gender transition. I might think it’s also fine to let trans athletes compete except I would hate it if the women’s league became the trans league or if poor young kids felt pressure to transition in order to compete at a higher level and get life-changing scholarships or even a professional career.
Is that a legitimate fear? Maybe not. At the end of the day, I rarely watch sports. I would support letting them compete and seeing if it is a problem before passing laws to fix issues that don’t actually exist.
I’m a Christian who doesn’t celebrate Christmas. You can imagine how that goes over with the family. But it’s definitely a super pagan celebration. 🤷
I think that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, as it causes mental distress if not alleviated with transition, but that it’s not shameful to have it any more than it’s shameful to have autism, conversion therapy has been scientifically proven not to work, and just as people with diabetes manage their condition with insulin, transition is the best way to manage it so people with it can live happy lives.
yeah it’s a body dysphoria. there are lots of types of them.
As a trans person yes, absolutely the anguish we feel for not being comfortable in our bodies is 100% mental illness. And people get upset because we see mental illness as a bad thing, a personal failure, instead of a condition to be treated.
Doctors have decided that transitioning, while it doesn’t fix the problem of people not being born as their preferred gender, is much healthier treatment for the individual and society so that we can try to live happier lives where we get to feel as comfortable as cis people naturally feel.
gender dysphoria is a mental illness
I think that’s the general consensus.
I seem to constantly interact with people decrying the ‘transmedicalist perspective’
That people take issue with this point of view speaks to a general stigma around ‘mental illness’ as a category. Some strides have been made but we’re still not where I’d like us to be.
Yes, gender dysphoria is a psychological condition. Yes, in many cases acceptance of identified gender and medical transition can reduce the suffering caused by the condition. It’s not like there’s been resounding success/better ‘patient’ outcomes for the alternatives.
It’s just such an obvious line of reasoning to me that I have a hard time understanding how some people don’t grok it, unless they’ve been poisoned by shitty preachers.
