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Progress & Regress Pokémon — Help Wanted

Hey, I've been working more on my Progress & Regress Pokémon concepts, and I'd like to get some feedback on them. I'm also running out of ideas to expand with (I'd like to end the chains with a Fire/Rock Progress Pokémon and a Poison/Fighting Regress Pokémon, to be hard-countered by Crimsolusion and Azureality, respectively), so I need some more ideas on things RationalWiki endorses and opposes. Luigifan18 (talk) 17:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

…Hello? Luigifan18 (talk) 18:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll check it out. Carthage (talk) 06:02, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I can hardly wait. (I also need some help fleshing out the ideas I do have. Like, for instance, was Leavanny really the best Pokémon to turn into the avatar of hippies? I still have some doubts about that.) Luigifan18 (talk) 05:06, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I have nothing whatsoever against you Luigifan (I'm a big Ingress player) but if you expect RW to endorse your Pokémon enthusiasm I think you may have to wait a long time. :-( Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:04, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

…Can I get some feedback on my ideas, please? Luigifan18 (talk) 04:35, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I got a Gameboy and Pokemon Red as a Christmas present back in 98. there were two other kids in my 5th grade year who knew anything about pokemon, and they liked the anime, so they were making Pokemon noises at each other for fun. You have to understand that this is incredible for me, not the first I've seen it but do you really get what being a fan of Pokemon would afford you in the late 90's? The game was awesome, the fandom was getting beat up. To see somebody so confidently be like 'don't y'all know Pokemon?' Like, no, I don't. I know about around 150 pokemon. But I am a little jealous of current anime fans. Their taste is bad, but everybody's taste in everything is bad, so whatever, at least they get to watch anime without being called the f word. Torrent (talk) 10:18, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

…Uh… should I take this to the saloon bar talk page? Luigifan18 (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Any ideas on what sorts of woo I can represent with a Grass/Ground-type? (Aside from herbalism, since Creikipath has that covered.) Luigifan18 (talk) 03:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

@Bob M By the way, what does Ingress have to do with this, aside from being developed by the same people as Pokémon Go and using basically the same servers? Luigifan18 (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

You walk about and interact with locations in the real world. All the PoGo gyms and poketops were originally imported from waypoints created by Ingress players. I only mention it in the context of having nothing against these games in principle. But, as I said, I kind of doubt you will get the community very interested in this.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 11:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Things are progressing pretty smoothly, but I do need a few more ideas. Luigifan18 (talk) 03:43, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

BTW, I'm in the process of commissioning artwork of Azureality from BaeFakemon on Instagram (who previously drew my Paradox Dragonite idea, Noble Wish). Luigifan18 (talk) 19:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I now officially have a rough sketch of Azureality! Would anyone like to see it? Luigifan18 (talk) 15:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Here's another rough sketch. Luigifan18 (talk) 03:59, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ …I dunno how much longer I'm willing to keep this open without responses. I'm currently waiting for BaeFakemon to finish the drawing. (And can someone please help me think of a few more ideas?) Luigifan18 (talk) 17:51, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

I've now got the finished drawings of Azureality, for those who are interested! (But seriously, if this continues to get no responses, I'll probably archive it myself and recreate it in the talk page.) Luigifan18 (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Maybe a military or war one? It could be like a tank or bomber plane. maybe steel/dark or steel/fire. steel/dark with an ability that powers up fire type moves could work. Koafox (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I already have a war one. It's named Inceruction, and it's Steel/Fire. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Carthage, did you ever check out the project? Luigifan18 (talk) 21:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

@Carthage? Hello? Luigifan18 (talk) 00:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

…I do wonder what the holdup is on Instagram… Luigifan18 (talk) 05:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I just PM'd BaeFakemon; Azureality is due to appear on Instagram this week. Luigifan18 (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

…Maybe I need to send another PM. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Never mind, the Instagram post just came up! Luigifan18 (talk) 02:25, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ After reading (and editing) the pages on numerology and new gematria, I can't help thinking that maybe one of the remaining Regress Pokémon should be based on it. Should it be the Ground/Grass one or the Fairy/Ground one? (Also, apparently none of the Regress Pokémon represent conspiracy theories yet. What?) Luigifan18 (talk) 20:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

…Still not sure what woo I can represent with Ground and Grass… Luigifan18 (talk) 22:57, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, conspiracy theories it is, at least unless I get a better idea. Luigifan18 (talk) 03:01, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I also decided to make the Fairy/Ground Regress Pokémon represent freemen on the land. (I've named it Legandeeract — a (admittedly somewhat butchered) portmanteau of "legal", "land", "free", and "contract", with "legend" semi-coincidentally mixed in.) I even made the symbolism a pun on the typing, since the legal system devised by the freemen on the land is, well, a fairy tale — a mere fabrication, not accepted as valid in reality. Luigifan18 (talk) 17:38, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Still waiting for BaeFakemon on YouTube… Luigifan18 (talk) 01:48, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I should probably PM Bae on Instagram again. I'd like to keep this topic alive until I have a chance to show off the drawing process video… Luigifan18 (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Apparently it's gonna take a while for the video to come out… Luigifan18 (talk) 09:19, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Welp, I went a bit too far in talking about one of the Regress Pokémon in an unrelated thread on the Saloon Bar. At least I recognized the problem ahead of time and pre-emptively wrought some order out of the potential chaos (while firing a self-deprecating shot at myself for good measure). Luigifan18 (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Common ground between rationalists and the alt-right?

…Anyone have any ideas what rational leftists and alt-rightists both dislike? All I've got is communism. (Conservatives don't like communism because it bashes their self-interest, and rationalists don't like it because it requires the absolute suppression of self-interest, which only works for eusocial animals like ants, bees, and mole rats — not for humans, so attempting to implement it results in shitholes like the Soviet Union and North Korea.) Luigifan18 (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I think you might be conflating rationalism and rationality. A rationalist is a person that adhere to the epistemological view of rationalism, not someone that is "rational" (indeed, everyone thinks they are rational). GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I did indeed mean "rationalism", but "rationalist[ic] lefties" would have been a bit of a mouthful. Luigifan18 (talk) 20:03, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

There are also definitely leftists whom I met who identify as a rationalist (of the less wrong variety) and as a communist on the internet. Many folks who self-identify with the term "leftist" rather than liberal, specifically do so because of their explicit support of socialism, or their sympathy for communist ideals. You have to remember that communism broadly speaking is like egalitarian "communal living" as an economic system. Small-scale "egalitarian" or "intentional" communities exist throughout the United States and elsewhere that live by the norms of "each according to their ability, and each according to their need" in small commune communities. The issue is with applying such norms nationally, or upon economies of scale. Not everyone who identifies as a communist is sympathetic to the model of state socialism practiced by the likes of Russia, or China. And folks sometimes can recognize the applicability of "commune-living" on a small scale, or among hunter-gatherer tribes (as what Marx would call "primitive communism") without embracing it as a political ideal on a national or international level. Even those who may identify themselves as social democratic, and may not fully embrace communism as a national political system, or even socialism for that matter, can still be argued to have some sympathies with these political philosophies regardless and hence the overlap between social democrats and democratic socialists in terms of supported policies. It is weird and kind of politically loaded to assume that to be a "rational leftist™" would entail some unnuanced rejection of communism as a general idea. It also seems to be at least partially crediting the alt-right as having some rationalistic commitments.

And as with what GJK said accurately, rationalism is an epistemological view, and you are confusing rationalism with rationality. They are not both conflatable, and it should be said that "rationality" itself is a term with no consensus definition among those within cognitive science and philosophy who study the concept. What is rationality supposed to be here? Responsiveness to reason? Logical coherence in one's set of beliefs? And instrumental relationship between what means reliably produce what ends? And inherently valued state of being? The maximization of personal utility? Why would any of these definitions per se rule out any particular political philosophy? Some seem more inclusive to certain political philosophies over others, and some seem compatible with any particular ideology dependent on the particular ends of the individual who is applying it. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:12, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, social democracy, democratic socialism, socialism, and communism occupy a spectrum of equality (economic and otherwise), [enforced] altruism, focus upon the whole community, etc. There's a reason why Karl Marx called socialism an intermediary step before the full implementation of communism in the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, and that's because socialism is, in many ways, a "diet" version of communism. The idea behind why I think a rationalist could support socialism yet reject communism is that socialism (and its one-step-below variants, social democracy and democratic socialism) is workable in practice, but full communism, as you said, is not practical, at least not on a national scale (or anything above the scale of individual villages, really). Socialism, social democracy, and democratic socialism allow for some degree of reward for above-and-beyond effort, individualism, and other things that can channel humanity's innate selfishness in productive and communally-helpful ways, while still being… unamused with "look out for number one" antics; communism expects humans to behave like ants, with all effort being directed towards the well-being of the group as a whole, and then gets flabbergasted when humans turn out not to act like that. (BTW, I'm not crediting the alt-right with having any rational thoughts, let alone commitments; I'm asking what things they might dislike that might also be things that rational lefties would dislike. The two groups can and probably would dislike those things for very different reasons. For instance, conservatives tend to skip all the practical reasons to be skeptical-at-best of communism and zero in on it being a huge change to the status quo (which makes it scary) that seems to be out to hurt them in particular (which, to be fair, it kind of is…).)

As for rationalism versus rationality, well, I do tend to conflate those and treat them as equivalent. I think I go a little more in-depth when I talk about Azureality (i.e. what I'm hoping will be the site mascot), but "rationality" and "rationalism" as I see it entails responsiveness to reason and evidence, i.e. a skeptical, empirical, scientific point of view. Rationalism is not hostile to ideas that came about largely through the exercise of solid logic, and can have a grudging respect for beliefs that are logically consistent even if their truth value is shaky-at-best when put to the test (for instance, the ideas behind the concept of qi). However, while rationalism can respect ideas that are logically well-formulated and conceived with good intentions (especially if the people who came up with those ideas legitimately didn't know better and lacked the ability to properly gain the information that could have helped them know better), that respect tends to go out the window when people start getting hurt and/or ripped off or when those ideas are presented as some sort of [empirically]-verified truth when they're not, and it does not accept ideas that do not have supporting evidence and/or do not pan out within perceivable reality; for instance, rationalism does not hate religion and attack it on principle (unless the religion in question is something really abhorrent and/or stupid), but given the lack of evidence for religious claims, it is strictly secular and does not incorporate religion into its philosophy. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, Marx never claimed socialism as a interperiod transitionary state, That was something introduced by Lenin. One thing GJK and I would agree upon is that socialism is best thought of as a economic system where the means of production is predominantly under collective and/or public ownership as opposed to being predominately privately owned. Communism is therefore a proper subset of socialism, but socialism is not a subset of communism.

As for the rationalism conception, that is way too broad. I know of philosophers who use that exact definition as a basis for moral naturalism. “Responsive” to reason is so vague, it’s hard to see who isn’t a rationalist besides those who have no language capacities and are completely indifferent to their sense experiences. You need to determine what is and what is not an appropriate response to reason and/or evidence. Regardless, by your definition, most philosophers throughout history could be conceived as rationalists, communists included. Also most philosophers of rationality (and many a cognitive neuroscientist) would discount one as being rational if they rejected inferences of classical logic. I don’t think you are really describing rationalism if implicit to it is a skepticism of logic, that seems to be a more radical empiricism than that of W.V.O. Quine - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:05, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

*sigh* Not skepticism of logic, that's just silly. I'm talking about skepticism driven by logic. Luigifan18 (talk) 02:27, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Oopsies, I misread. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 09:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Whoops, I was not aware that the idea of socialism as an intermediate step towards communism started with Lenin rather than Marx.

For my interpretation of "rationalism"… if it helps, you can think of intuition and pure logic as being useful as starting points — the process of forming ideas that make sense, given what is known about the world. Then the next step of empirical rationalism is to see if those ideas actually work in the real world, i.e. experimentation. This is what I mean by something like qi being logical but lacking truth value — the underlying concepts are logical and consistent, but they fail to actually explain reality.

As for zeroing in on communism, that is largely being used as an example of something that both rationalists and alt-rightists would dislike — the alt-right hates it because it directly challenges their ambitions to achieve complete… economic… domination, keep them there dirty minorities in their place, and/or rule like kings over all of mankind, and rationalists don't trust it because it's been tried several times and ended catastrophically damn-near every single time. Why communism seems to consistently fail is a subject for debate — I'm sure tankies would blame it on the U.S. and other capitalist nations relentlessly sabotaging and undermining communist nations like the USSR to force them to fail, but that sounds like a baseless conspiracy theory to me (if communism is really such a perfect and optimal way to run a country, one would think that a communist nation would be able to be a prosperous state and a great place to live, even with the rest of the world doing everything in their power to turn it to shit; it makes more sense to attribute communism failing to plain old weaknesses of human character that it doesn't account for, which results in stuff like government corruption and excessively-optimistic hair-brained schemes (like Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward) that hamstrings it before it can even get going). Anyways, I'm sure there are other things that both rational, sensible people and fascist fundie nutters would have a noted dislike towards. Communism was just the first and main thing I could think of; to me, it is the prime example of something that the reality-based community and the Religious Right Trump's coterie of Worst People Ever People With More Hate-Boners Than Sense would both dislike. (That, and I blame the Cold War for shifting the Overton window far enough to the right for fascism to not only become viable in America, but to get strong enough to flat-out utterly consume the Republican Party. (Well, I partially blame the Cold War. I'm sure McCarthyism and other facets of struggling against communism wasn't the only factor that made the American political climate scared shitless of anything left of center and hospitable to the far right; just one of the bigger ones.)) Luigifan18 (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I think there are some conceptual problems from the outset here. Given the inclusive definition of communism here, including what Marx called “primitive communism” — not every historical attempt can be called a failure. Are the small intentional egalitarian communities that have populations of a few hundred people or less who have managed to sustain themselves for decades failures? What about the various hunter-gatherer tribes or horticultural tribal communities that survived for centuries sometimes even for millennia without any semblance of a class, state, or currency?

If you are versed in communist theory as you claim, than the issue of “communism” here is not per se in the possibility of a classless or stateless society. There something more so the matter with the means to which states have tried to direct society towards an advanced communism that has consistently failed in the last century.

That being said I think the sustainability of such an advanced communism is underdetermined, because as an end-point stage it has never successfully been reached. Every state project has turned into something that would resemble a capitalist market economy with more or less of a presence of state enterprise. To talk about a “communist country” is a contradiction in terms if used under its economic meaning. The only sense of “communism” that is applicable is as an ideological orientation of the ruling party. The problem with that being that none of these nominally communist states actually have a wholly consistent or shared ideology. Hence all the variations from Classic Marxists, Leninists, Trots, ML’s, Maoists, etc.

There is also an issue of simply accepting state’s definition of itself. Is China really a republic? North Korea a democracy?

Also “reality-based community” isn’t a genuine social group. Have a little more analytical of a mindset then relying on the positive association of terms. This is on par with calling one self a “goodist”. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ What is RationalWiki if not an expression of the reality-based community?

Also, @OnlySortaDumb, can you give me a source on Lenin being the source of the idea of socialism as a transitory state to communism? Our list of forms of government article's section on communism seems to attribute the view of communism following socialism to Marx. Luigifan18 (talk) 16:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Everyone thinks they are part of a “reality-based community”. It doesn’t genuinely pick out anyone specific. Hardly anyone thinks they are not believing on the basis of what is real. That is almost what it means to believe in something. The only purpose of such a term is to allege a special insider status for oneself to insult an outgroup. It’s unhelpful, prevents meaningful communication, and only speaks to illustrate how far your head is up your own ass.

As for the claim about socialism. It’s a basic fact about the very notion of a socialist mode of production. Wikipedia says “Marx himself did not use the term socialism to refer to this development. Instead, Marx called it a communist society that has not yet reached its higher-stage. The term socialism was popularized during the Russian Revolution by Vladimir Lenin.” Don’t think Wikipedia is reliable? Similar claim is made in Marx: a very short introduction by Peter Singer published in the Oxford University Press. Most secondary literature I have read has suggested that Marx didn’t make the distinction between socialism and communism, and instead spoke of higher and lower stages of communism. Even the DoTP is never described as “socialist” within the communist manifesto. That which I have read several times. When socialism is mentioned in the manifesto is often used disparagingly by Marx to describe german and french socialist projects that Marx saw as failures, or doomed to fail on the basis of being largely petit-bourgeois projects. Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 18:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined to disagree with both of you. I believe it was Engels who, in fact, coined the term "scientific socialism".[1] If you want my opinion, he was far more of a sophisticated thinker than most people give him credit for, but for some reason he'll live forever in the shadow of his friend. It is true, however, that Marx (especially the older Marx) hardly ever wrote about communism, he was studying capitalism. Heck, the tiny communist manifesto at least had a list of ways to achieve communism IIRC, Das Kapital basically only focus on capitalism. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:54, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Nope, nope, nope, to the land of 10 thousand nopes, nope. These are not people we should be finding common ground with. They need to eat shit and die alone, they do not deserve to be legitimized. Fuck off with that liberal bullshit. Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 17:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Normally, I would agree. But the Progress and Regress Pokémon are still Pokémon. Pokémon is a very idealistic franchise that has historically been averse to depicting any of its titular monsters as pure evil; it's not afraid to depict humans as being evil (Giovanni, Ghetsis, Lysandre, and Volo being some excellent examples), but the Pokémon themselves are usually only as good or evil as their trainers shape them to be. Thus, I felt the need to force the Progress and Regress Pokémon to set their differences aside in my hypothetical post-game, and the most feasible way to do that was with a common enemy. (The Regress Pokémon will still be very much Reformed But Not Tamed at best (the situation is Enemy Mine, not the Regress Pokémon having a miraculous change of heart), and the alliance will be a case of Teeth-Clenched Teamwork. I'm not letting the fascists off that easily.) The best candidate I could think of for the common enemy was communism — as I said, rationalists don't like communism because it doesn't work, and conservatives see communism as an existential threat. So while rationalists and conservatives don't have to like each other, they might agree that it's in both of their best interests to put tankies in their place. Luigifan18 (talk) 04:06, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Historically liberals have sided with fascists to protect their economic interests, so your uncritical take here has some historical precedent. Usually this would take the form of overthrowing socialist regimes (democratic or otherwise) and replacing them with reactionary dictatorships, or enacting fascist policies and supporting fascist politicians that would break up labor movements, often violently. Our article on liberalism is quite enlightening as to the degree liberals have cooperated with fascists to protect their interests. You know the old saying that fascism is capitalism in crisis? Carthage (talk) 04:41, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I've hung out with enough communists on Reddit to hear the "fascism is capitalism in crisis" thing. What's your point? (Bear in mind that I'm American, so I'm using the American definition of "liberalism", i.e. as synonymous with "progressive".) Luigifan18 (talk) 03:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That you're ignoring material realities. Why exactly would liberals side with fascists? What threat does, say, organized labor pose to the shared interests of liberals and fascists? Carthage (talk) 03:56, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The common threat I have in mind is less organized labor and moreso the specter of the Soviet Union, a la Putin's Russia or North Korea. Again, it's not socialism that I see rationalists having a problem with; I think socialism/social democracy can be very rational. The problematic, moonbatty, insane ideology here is communism, i.e. socialism gone mad and having devolved into repression and authoritarianism (which, for all the commonalities Soviet communism has with fascism and its capability to be on par with fascism in terms of badness (a capability that was certainly realized under Stalin), is still opposed to fascism/capitalism and treats fascism as its enemy).

The point of me opening up this sub-thread was to ask if anybody had any better ideas for what a common enemy for the Progress and Regress Pokémon (i.e. rational progressivism and other-fearing fascism) could look like. I may already have designed Revladutchyu as the post-game final boss, but I'm still open to alternative ideas (given that the Cold War has been officially over for about three decades now and Trump is basically Putin's lapdog). Luigifan18 (talk) 04:23, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I'm going to ask what exactly you believe communism to be? To communists, they would argue "real communism" has never been achieved, and can't be achieved without significant capital and technological advancement, outside of small communes, where arguably communism does work for the communities in question, like hunter-gatherer societies. I would argue that there was no real distinction between socialism and communism as organized movements way back when. Hell, even the USSR never officially claimed to be communist, merely that they were building the groundwork for socialism, the transitory stage (where the means of production are collectively or publicly owned) between the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism (a stateless, moneyless, classless society). What policies did socialists or communists promote that led to fascists and liberals cooperating? Nationalization of key industries is something that many communists and socialists have promoted, and the specific nationalization of key industries have seen regimes be toppled by hegemonic powers (as with Mossadegh in 1953). Carthage (talk) 04:31, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, when I hear "communism", I do think of the countries that have tried and failed to implement it (with often disastrous results), like the Soviet Union, North Korea, and China. I do agree that "real communism" has never been achieved on the state/national scale, because there's always some sort of stumbling block that prevents it. As far as I can tell, that stumbling block is human nature itself — human psychology has not evolved to be compatible with absolute selflessness. People have innate drives to push themselves higher on the social ladder and claim a bigger slice of the metaphorical pie, since that generally leads to better odds of prolonged survival and successful reproduction for oneself and one's offspring. Sad to say, but natural selection usually favors selfishness. Again, if you want to see communism working, look at an anthill or honeybee hive. Those insects have mastered the concept of colonies of individuals working for the overall good of the whole collective. But they have evolved to be that way, with stuff like the worker individuals being sterile (and thus not having anything to actually gain by acting selfishly — their success is one and the same with their queen's success), and even in their case, it can be argued that their "communism" doesn't work that well on a scale larger than individual colonies (ant colonies have been observed to wage vicious wars with one another). So maybe it is the American propaganda talking (and my general approach of viewing things through a biological/evolutionary lens), but I see communism as being an idea that's good (if not great) on paper, but not so great in practice, largely because we as a species can't really bring ourselves to actually try it on a wide societal scale. With that said, I do believe that lesser forms of communism (like socialism and social democracy) that allow for some degree of selfishness and individual advancement, while still curtailing abusive behaviors and foul play and providing a safety net to prevent anyone from being completely screwed over, are not only workable, but are an optimal state for humanity and human society.

Anyways, the real question here is whether there's a better candidate than communism for a "common enemy" that could force RationalWiki-style rationalism and progressivism to at least call for a tense truce to be formed with conservatives and regressives (and have the conservatives actually agree to said truce). Heck, maybe there's an alternative means of reconciliation I haven't thought of. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:25, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

You say that "communism would require a eusocial nature," but that seems like a strawman. How does this hierarchical view of human nature equate to societies, like hunter-gatherers, who live decidedly communal lifestyles? Marx called this "primitive communism," as there really are societies where people live without money, states, and classes. That doesn't mean they are "eusocial" or selfless to a fault by any means, but that simply the dictates of their material conditions incentivizes cooperation over competition. It seems naive to assert that the conditions of very specific cultural circumstances that incentivize selfish behavior over solidarity should be universalized, as opposed to the more sensible idea that human nature is malleable to the specific material conditions humans find themselves in. In fact, in certain cultures a "radical selflessness" is exhibited, such as in certain Native American cultures where in certain ceremonies giving away almost all of your material possessions actually reinforced your social status. This is still competitive, as people compete to give away more of their possessions, so the idea that communal societies must be eusocial is a fallacious misconception. Carthage (talk) 15:39, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

"Radical selflessness"? I think I actually heard about that (though not in those exact terms) while studying the Makah Indians for a research project in a music college course I took. I found them so fascinating that I made a Pokémon out of their tumanuwos concept. Good times. While I mostly remember the tumanuwos (having made a Pokémon out of it and all) — in fact, I'm rather baffled by Wikipedia having virtually no information about the tumanuwos — I also still remember the paper I was using as my research basis ("Aspects of Spiritual and Political Power in Chiefs' Songs of the Makah Indians", Linda J. Goodman, World of Music) mentioning the concept of a "potlatch", which is essentially the sort of "competitive giving" festival you described. (BTW, the paper is behind a paywall, so the best way I can summarize the tumanuwos is that it's like the Christian concept of a guardian angel or the New Age concept of a spirit guide (with a bit of "divine right of kings"/"mandate of heaven" mixed in), but with more individual agency (not really being tied to a specific mortal individual) and having a noted love of music, making music a core component of their associated rituals.) But enough getting sidetracked…

Make no mistake, I'm aware that humans are a social species at heart, and society is built on cooperation (which is part of why I call social democracy an optimal state of being). But for a social species, humans are also very prone to intraspecific competition. I specifically mentioned "the state/national scale" in my last posting out of awareness of and deference to "primitive communism" and the small communities that still successfully practice communism to this day. However, I'm pretty sure that advanced societies have tended to be hierarchical as far back as the Bronze Age (as seen in empires and civilizations like the Assyrians and the Mesopotamians); I'll admit that I have yet to do research to confirm or deny this and I'm working off what I remember from school and other history conversations I've observed, so I may not have my facts straight, but the point is that while the concepts of class or money may not have been around since the very beginning of civilization, they did get developed and established pretty early on. They were definitely well-established enough by Marx's and Engel's time for them to dedicate their lives to complaining about it and trying to solve the problems created by inequality.

Anyways, I actually agree with a lot of your criticisms of communism being a suitable common enemy for rationalism and fascism to take seriously enough to try to work together to fight (and then go back to trying to squish each other into nonexistence afterwards…). The problems with communism aren't so much flaws of the concept as much as they are flaws with the execution. The worst you can really say about communism (assuming that you are an epistemic rationalist who's willing to evaluate it fairly and rationally instead of having a knee-jerk negative reaction at the idea of not being superior to others) is that it's horrendously naïve and fails to account for cultural and psychological factors that could undermine it. I know that communism isn't the perfect candidate for something that rationalists and [irrational] conservatives would find common ground and a common cause in treating with contempt (albeit for very different reasons). It's just the best idea I could come up with. Therefore, I seriously need to ask if anyone has any better ideas. Luigifan18 (talk) 17:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it worth mentioning that humans have lived in communal societies for the vast majority of our existence. Hierarchical civilization has only existed for about ten thousand years, whereas not only is Homo sapiens three hundred times older than that, but the hunter-gatherer mode of social organization dates all the way back to Homo erectus. I also find the argument that a "superior mode of production" to capitalism is impossible unconvincing. Human nature is malleable according to material circumstances. We all feel the base urges to eat and sleep, but we can choose what to eat and where to sleep. However, I would agree that the projects of the 20th century were failures, although the reasons for their failure are still subject to debate. Dumb mentions, for instance, the contention that one of the possible reasons for the collapse of 20th century communist projects was because of the insistent focus on matching standards of living to the West rather than focusing on increasing the quality of life. That link I posted about "radical selflessness" also mentions that "many contemporary Russians voice regret for the disappearance of old patterns of cooperation in the new capitalist era and are decidedly ambivalent about the virtues of competition," though it takes pains to point out that "no large socialist or Communist state ever managed to create a population of ideal Communist citizens." I would also like to point out that the "human nature" objection to communism or socialism is an appeal to nature fallacy. Carthage (talk) 17:16, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

You… kinda talked past me. There is a rather large difference of circumstances in the lives of prehistoric/hunter-gatherer humans and agricultural/civilized humans that could contribute to making a communism-type lifestyle viable for humanity at one point of its development, but not at another. I also mentioned in a previous posting that the exact reasons why the communist nations of the 20th century failed to succeed are complex, unclear, and very much still up for debate. Luigifan18 (talk) 19:54, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Sure, that’s what people within the literature mean when they talk about the “feasibility” problem. Analytical Marxists like the likes of Cohen and others, have argued why socialists may have to make concessions on things like markets as “necessary evils” because it does seem that prices are the only effective means of communicating demand in sizeable economies.

But there is an argument to be made that such limitations may be technological limitations, rather than a hard limit on economic systems as a whole. Proponents for par-econ have argued that the system can be proven a priori to be Pareto efficient. There is also the speculation that a sufficient advanced AI system may be able to effectively run/plan an economy given the access it would have to unfathomable amounts of data, and processing power. “Rationalists” have communicated just as far-fetch speculations in mind uploading and Roko's basilisk. Why those things are welcome parts of the territory of rationalism but communism is off the table, seems to me a logical incoherence.

Like I think you are running with the assumption that all self-described communists think a sizable communist society can be implemented whenever, provided that the capitalists are overthrown. Hardly any actually think that. Trotskysts are pretty open about certain technological advancements needing to happening first, and the impossibility of “socialism in one country”.

There is the question I would like to propose, if feasibility wasn’t a problem, what would be ethically objectionable about a classless, moneyless, stateless society? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:11, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Feasibility is the core problem with communism. It's a textbook example of something that sounds great on the drawing board, but proves to be nigh-impossible to put into practice. Luigifan18 (talk) 17:24, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Restating something without actually acknowledging counterarguments is a textbook case of argumentum ad nauseam. Carthage (talk) 17:36, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

So ultimately, if feasibility wasn’t a problem. You @Luigifan18 would have zero objections to communism? Why is it so hard to say that directly? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, on paper, communism as written — the idea of a society without inequality and where everybody gets the support they need — sounds wonderful. I'm just deeply skeptical about whether or not it can be achieved or maintained. I'm a biologist at heart and I accept the reality of evolution and natural selection. As such, I believe that everyone has intrinsic drives to promote their own welfare, and while I believe that humans in particular can and should strive to temper those impulses so as to avoid inflicting undue pain and/or hardship on others, I don't think that the impulses to promote one's own welfare can or should be entirely denied. The problem with communism is precisely the fact that it disregards the own-welfare impulses that are, well, survival instincts.

To say that in a bit more detail, humanity is a social species, so excessive selfishness tends to be extremely problematic for everybody (paradoxically including the selfish), to the point where extreme selfishness has historically been considered a solid benchmark for defining "evil" (though I believe that true evil includes components of inflicting pain for its own sake (i.e. cruelty/sadism), relishing in misery and destruction regardless of their necessity (again, i.e. cruelty/sadism), and/or arbitrarily regarding certain conspecifics as vermin and treating them that way (often as a "safe" outlet for sadism), that mere amorality lacks; we generally don't take anyone who calls a non-human animal "evil" seriously, regardless of how messed-up some of what they do may look to a human perspective, because (at least as far as we can tell) they don't usually have as much reason or capability to hold their treatment of others in any significant regard as humans do). However, as much as I'll rail on and on about how altruism, heroism, compassion, and empathy are great (at least for humans and other social animals), I'm also somewhat skeptical of excessive altruism being feasible or even desirable (albeit in more of a "too dumb to live" sense than a "menace to everybody" sense). I think that both capitalism and communism skew too far towards one end of the altruism-selfishness scale for their own good, and the ideal state is somewhere in between, leaning a bit towards altruism (e.g. social democracy or socialism).

Anyways, my core question — whether there is a better candidate for a common enemy for rational progressivism and conservative regressivism than communism, and what that common enemy could be — still has not been answered. Luigifan18 (talk) 16:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

What the heck is "everybodywiki"?

…Huh. What is this "en.everybodywiki" that vandal cited in his "fishhook theory" tirade, and is it trustworthy? Now I'm curious. (I'm not restoring the vandal's comment itself because the way it was phrased was clearly more of an attempt to pick a fight than to contribute to the conversation, but I did take a peek at that link he posted, and it looks decent enough aside from a typo (and being a stub… and not being updated since 2020). Do we mention that subject on our horseshoe theory article?) Luigifan18 (talk) 15:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Just checked… yep, fishhook theory is there. Right in section 1.1 after the intro, even. Luigifan18 (talk) 16:34, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Horseshoe theory is hot garbage, and the article we have on it is hot garbage. "Anecdata". Seriously? That's your standard for evidence? Carthage (talk) 16:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Everybodywiki is a Wiki with no notability requirements whatsoever. Predictably, a lot of the recent changes therefore are self-promo spam.

My take on "horseshoe theory" is that it has some "merit" mainly because binary "left-right" political classifications in itself are often problematic. But only because of that. It's like music genres - everyone uses these terms as shorthand. And by-the-numbers genre artists certainly exist. But when you look deep into the detail of many artists classified a certain way, though, it's often not like the genre stereotype at all. BobJohnson (talk) 16:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I am inclined to say it's got something to do with the 'Overton Window' than anything else. Folks [of all stripes] who fall outside of it end up having rather similar views towards the various horrid mainstream anything - for example, a Nazi will bitch at 'the MSM' because it doesn't report how whites are being screwed-over by 'da Jews' etc while Communists will equally bitch at them being nothing but flunkies for 'international capitalists' but fundies also hate it for not taking seriously their claims that Satan is physically present on Earth right now and organising their minions to conquer the world. Occasionally, you can get a situation where several, unrelated groups end up hating the same person for overlapping reasons - good example being George Soros. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I think Horseshoe theory is valid in that authoritarians often come to similar conclusions and use similar methods once in power no matter what ideology there is behind it.-Ryan1257 (talk) 00:23, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I love how we keep pretending a theory considered garbage in political science is worth taking seriously, and the fact there are so many interpretations of this garbage theory just within this very thread doesn't make a charitable case for its analytical utility. Carthage (talk) 00:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

So we have different opinions on why extremists seem to come to similar conclusions, we just recognize a common phenomena and don't quite have any better term for it besides "horseshoe theory". How would you explain far right/left similarities, or do you seriously believe they are nothing alike?-Ryan1257 (talk) 02:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Horseshoe theory is oversimplified rubbish that does away with the political spectrum entirely. I think a better question we should be asking is if these similarities are stylistic or substantive. As for the problems with authoritarianism, that's just how power works. It's not limited to the "far left" and "far right," no matter how vague and useless such terms are (horseshoe theory ignores the top down axis entirely), as Tikitime illustrates on the horseshoe theory talkpage. So do I believe that authoritarianism is a real thing? Yes. Do I believe that horseshoe theory does a good job of explaining it? No, and neither do political scientists. Carthage (talk) 02:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I think Bob's take is pretty defensible. If there is any merit to the idea, it is only because the left/right political spectrum is itself not particularly unambiguous or distinctive. I think it is more than possible to make "similarity" arguments superficially that can come off as equally compelling to someone of a particular political background simply because it permits them to hate on the groups of people they were already inclined to hate on anyway. Like it wouldn't be hard to make the argument to lefties that liberalism is openly compatible with and benefits from far-right authoritarianism based on the active interests of neoliberal institutions to help establish far-right dictators in South America during the Cold War, highlighting the subsequent gross human rights violations. I can hear the centrist cries of non-applicability already, given that such violations or policies weren't established domestically, but I can already predict the leftist response in not finding that particularly compelling considering that there is an open history of human rights violations against certain disenfranchised groups within the US, and the sheer fact that countries like Canada and the US founded upon liberal ideals, were also established through acts classifiable as genocidal. Then we can devolve into the discussion of the various leftwing atrocities and attempt genocidal acts until the cows come home, with nobody realizing how not fucking innocent any particular point of the spectrum is in any of this. We need to build a new house that is not made with the master's tools. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:20, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Anything which is 'overfitted' becomes 'rubbish', Carthage. Horseshoe is a fair (though simple) explanation of how various types of nutjobs can end up at similar conclusions. Consider it more a 'lie-to-children' answer for laypersons than a fully fledged pol/sci theory which you'd use in an academic debate. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:07, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Is it though? You run the risk of false equivalency with such oversimplifcations (as can be seen in our own article), especially when an argument can be made that they don't fit. An argument can be made that centrism just as easily runs the risk of authoritarianism as any other ideology used to justify power, as has already been expressed both here in this thread and elsethread. I am not convinced that this "confused, semi-illiterate" reading of politics is worth the digital paper it's being printed on. Carthage (talk) 11:06, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

However, you run the risk of folks not getting your argument at all if you subject them to a multi-minute, polysyllabic monologue detailing why at times folks on the fringes of political debate appear to end up holding suprisingly similar views at times despite being ostensibly being ideologically opposed to each other. Similar complaints can be made towards, say Occam's Razor, Dunning-Kruger, the Grass/Rabbit/Fox ecoystem, 'Outside Context Problem' and so on - that they are simplifications which some can either over-apply or not understand at all.

This is basically the 'lies-to-children' debate; it is better to give 'children' [laypersons with no specialist interest/knowledge] a simplified, though technically incorrect view of the subject/issue so they can at least grasp the principle [and run the risk of overfitting etc], or do we try to drill them in the correct technics straight away, knowing full well that a large % will most likely mentally give up before they finish your lesson? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:06, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Arguably the former suggestion is based in a kind of epistemic injustice and a slight sense of intellectual arrogance. People can be genuinely curious, and be provided with the epistemic capacities to understand a subject, or at the very least you can debunk common misconceptions. Something like an oversimplification, is not merely a simplification, as “over” is built in to the terminology it’s worth considering what could amount to such an overcorrection to be bordering on disinformation. As skeptics, we end up perpetuating the exact thing we are supposed to be committed to combating. “Lies to children” (putting aside the deep condescending nature built into the term) is often how pseudoscience gets born. It’s how a lot of quantum woo came to be. It is how climate change, framed as an inevitable apocalypse, motivates doomerism. This isn’t to say there isn’t a place for necessary simplification, but in stating that we have to keep in mind that simplifications can distortive, and over-simplifying can be overly distortive. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, simplifying can be distortive. That kinda happens when you throw nuance and accuracy out the window to make sure the dumb less-educated rubes get the overall message. Luigifan18 (talk) 14:03, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

If you throw "nuance and accuracy" out the window, then what is that message worth? People are not inherently stupid. This more implies a laziness on your part to adequately explain the topic (which, yes, impedes the "overall message") than the intellectual capacity of the person you are condescending to. Carthage (talk) 05:01, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we're referring to something that requires specialist knowledge to comprehend, and thus has to be dumbed down to be communicated to laypeople — for instance, the Talmud or an advanced scientific paper. (See our page on "release the data" and why acquiescing to such demands can be… impractical.) Luigifan18 (talk) 01:51, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

What specialist knowledge is required to understand the 14 characteristics of fascism? It doesn't take specialist knowledge to understand that fascism is a separate beast from, say, council communism. Likewise, what specialist knowledge is required to understand that liberal societies have engaged in authoritarianism to protect entrenched interests before, and this has gone as far as to include open cooperation with fascists? Carthage (talk) 02:39, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I am kind of curious when we speak of "specialist knowledge" what exactly, if anything, makes any of the editors here particularly qualified? What is your educational background @Luigifan18? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll do it. On termed of education about the subject, -- > None <-- that is the answer here, and it's not difficult. I would love if the question 'do you support fascism?' was so simple. I wouldn't myself speak of specialist knowledge in terms of pure education. Someti!es, specialist knowledge comes from working in the field. It would be a little nosy and rude, if not bad faith, to ask you, for your curiousity, how you came to ask such a question. If that is your question, who do you need an answer from? Torrent (talk) 09:43, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there a pre-existing term for this?

I have met individuals in the past who have been non-white and have used their status as non-white to dismiss or provide defences for other forms of oppression. I.e. adultism, ableism, queerphobia, etc. I am not speaking to the more justifiable criticism of critiquing the way these struggles draw analaogies to racism, that may be displaced. No, I think there is a genuine case to be made there. I am talking more so about people who state something like that because casually using the word "retard" isn't racist, it's morally permissible. If I object to it, saying that it's ableist, the criticism of ableism is framed as "white bullshit" and the individual continues using the word.

I have also witnessed people leveraging their status as non-white to defend iffy stances like the Irish slave myth or defend class exploitation, child abuse, etc. I feel like language to describe this behaviour should already be a thing, but I find it hard to find any literature on it. Asking around if anyone knows of an appropriate term to call this behaviour? An example may be something like a black person thinking that objecting to the word "faggot" is white bullshit, etc. Obviously, that is homophobic, but I am interested specifically in the use of one's oppressed status to justify oppressive behaviour. Like often these arguments have a weird implication that says disabled people or gay people don't exist in non-white communities....which is absurd. It probably works to marginalize such people in such communities even further, as it sort of implicated their non-existence, rendering them invisible.

Is this simply appealing to one's own authority? Anti-intersectionality? Oppression Olympics? I have only met a handful of people like this in my life, but dealing with some Palestinian acquaintances right now who throw around such language as "retard", and make weird casually homoerotic rape jokes in online games like it is an endangered species, then go on tell me "shut the fuck up, you're white" if I say something like "I don't like language like that, I think you should maybe stop using it" is getting hella exhausting. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

It is just up to you. You never have to engage with hate online, but if you do and get dismissed, it's their loss. And if it's online, you aren't really being oppressed, you're having your opinion challenged, probably disingenuously because a lot of people believe that trash talk works. I would say the word is a snarl word, but again, online, it's what you do with it. Growing up, my older brother knew if he called me a retard or a faggot, I was throwing hands and employed them in order to kick my ass. I tried a million insults on him, but the problem was he already knew them because I learned them from him. Not speaking on it is not the solution. The homoerotic rape joke stuff, I saw it coming from a real weird guy I worked with named Anus, not his real name but in real life somebody called him Anus and he thought it was hilarious, he was in high school and also thought the joke 'Hitler did nothing wrong' was top shelf, I did my best to discourage one of the jokes that wasn't OK, but I do remember him saying he was gonna fuck my dad before that meme blew up. I looked him straight in the eye, as his elder, and said 'you don't talk about my family'. He didn't talk like that to anyone afterwards, but he still made strange edgy jokes. Honestly, Anus was a naturally funny kid. A gem. His edge, for moving from online only to a group of real people only sharpened.

The must be retort more powerful than the insult, I would suggest rather than picking an insulting term, a response might blow their minds. Respondingg with 'hey, don't cut yourself on all that edge' Or a your mom response 'Weird, because your mom and I are friends, and we talk about you.'. I mean, if you can't vamp on that one, Then you don't know enough about these guys to worry if they are syour friends. I know a lot of guys who think, from movies, just giving each other shit and laughing about it is male friendship. I have run a majorally male warehouse , and I have had to interrupt, and say, literally 'Are you guys doing that thing where you're pretending to give each other a hard time but actually your feelings are getting hurt?' Adult men. And before I was in charge, I witnesIsed fistfights and wrestling matches. You ask that question, and the pride of no masculine feelings destroys all tension. But you have to understand your snarl words enough to know that the people who use them are ignorant of them and they don't have the understanding to use them in a truly harmful way against you.Torrent (talk) 05:52, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

The truth is, a lot of folks only give a damn about societal issues when it hits their 'own bubble'. In my experience, this is more often seen in people who are politically right-wing - that the moment a problem [such as homelessness] runs outside of their own personal experience they are incapable of empathising. Lack of empathy means lack of understanding, which leads to a complete lack of action on the issue. I've actually coined this issue 'the Cheney factor'; that the moment his daughter outed herself to him was the day LGBT rights became personal to him and he moved to dampen down the most homophobic elements swirling around Bush Jr. I've seen instances of where in the space of five mins a person has given a nuanced and intelligent decription of a marginalised group's problems to repeating the worst stereotypes of another.

The only time I've remotely managed to get through to anyone with this issue was arguing 'mutual tolerance/respect'. That if you want people to not call you [redacted], [redacted] or make jokes about [redacted] in return you must not call them [redacted] or make refrences about [redacted]. I don't give a damn in this case if you think the others 'mean nothing', it's simply about avoiding fucking blood on the carpet - there shall be some people elsewhere who think nothing of you but they are also biting their tongues. There's not much futher you can really go on this unless they've genuinely wish to learn, which in my experience is rare as hell. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:12, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

There is no pre-existing term for a marginalized group acting bigoted; this is because they are just bigoted. A black person, to give one example, certainly can be homophobic (hip-hop has been justifiably criticized for some pretty nasty examples of such). RW has an article on black supremacy for a reason. A group that is marginalized in one place may be the majority in another, so this has led to some very nasty anti-LGBTQ laws in Africa, eg Uganda.[2] Blacks are just an example here; you can pretty much rinse and repeat for *every* group out there, marginalized or not. TERFs and transphobic homosexuals, Jewish supremacists, racism in Asian countries, Islam xenophobes, the list goes on and on. Empathy is not the norm for humanity, unfortunately, IMHO. I agree with KarmaPolice that traditionally it is more the so called "right wing" (at least in Western-space, probably Asia-space too from what I can tell) that engages in anti-empathetic behavior, due to a greater emphasis on "traditional" society values or roles. But as noted above, it is not *exclusively* within that domain.

A lot of people's "bubble" involves them absorbing stereotypes without actually meeting the people in said stereotypes and failing to understand how much bullshit is involved with them. Even if there are elements of truth in the stereotypes, such is often grossly exaggerated. And yes, "the Cheney factor" reminds me of a compilation of anecdotes widely circulated on the Internet in the early days entitled "the only moral abortion is my abortion". One of the great ironies of religion is that so many of them actually do contain text encouraging empathy, but so many followers of the religion ignore said text and use the cloak of religion as justification for bigoted self-centered behavior. While Cheney had his "bubble" pierced a little, this doesn't happen for everyone who is personally affected on something they are bigoted about, unfortunately. BobJohnson (talk) 13:46, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

i dont know why anyone would be surprised at this. membership of an oppressed group does not prevent someone holding prejudices against another oppressed group. this should not come as a surprise. it should not come as a surprise certain prejudices are super common in some groups and super virulent too. with reference to homophobia specifically as an example, its no secret homophobia is present in most muslim communities, in the islamic world and in the west. in london, there are obviously going to be lgbt muslim people with the muslim communities there. but they are functionally invisible in those communities as a result of the homophobic sentiment in those communities. you either stay in the closet or you leave that community. either way, no gays in the muslim neighbourhood. that means all criticism of the homophobia in those communities comes from outside. often these communities already feel under attack from the outside, islamophobic sentiment common in the press, from, politicians of all stripes. they are attcked for being muslim, their defining identity, by a non muslim majority. people who just want equality attack them for their homophobia but say its not their muslim beliefs, and attacked by white racist groups who are probably just as homophobic say homophobia is fundamental to the being muslim. to muslims probably sounds like they both hate muslims. to them probably looks like white people hate muslims probably looks like white folk trying to diminish their faith, water it down by imposing something alien and in antithesis to their culture and religion and values. something abhorrent to them. a corruption not from within but from outside. they pull up the drawbridge and resist this poison from the white infidels.

should one be surprised that palestinians may be homophobic? sadly probably not. should a palestinian friend be taken task for homophobic comments? no doubt. will they appreciate the criticism? well that comes down to the individuals involved. palestinians have a cause in need of support and no doubt grateful to all it may come from. but whatever your intentions, you still look and sound like their oppressors and beating them with the same stick. the last person they heard that 'white bullshit' from probably used it to justify shelling his home.

criticism from white folk directed at a group once or currently oppressed by white folk doesnt make the criticism invalid, but it does make it very easy to ignore. ::::AMassiveGay (talk) 14:02, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Stereotypes are also frequently fairly outdated too; for example, I've heard right-wingers going on about the unemployed sitting around watching their 'widescreen TV' [when was the last time you saw a non-widescreen TV?] all day while living the lifestyle of Onslow from Keeping Up Apperances [ended 1995]. This is unsurprising when it's recalled that in the UK a lot of these are being peddled by Boomer journos to be read by other Boomers, some of which literally haven't updated their worldview for decades [qv, Littlejohn - telling us how it is in the UK from his Florida condo since the late 90s]. But the truth is, shite like this isn't designed to be evidence, they're simply thought-terminating clichés to stop critical thinking.

The other aspect which is notable is the 'exception makes the rule' situation some folks end up in - for example a person feeling that the unemployed are 'dole scoungers' because their own mother spent their entire live 'playing the system' so they could avoid having a job for twenty years and was/is always trying to get 'more gives' out of anyone [no, they really did]. This is more difficult to counter because we have elevated 'personal experience' to some kind of indisputable position [ie feels over facts] - which can be deadly if we have some totally unrepresentative minority idiot [qv, Braverman, Patel, Sunak etc] telling 'their story' which a non-minority person would feel uncomfortable in refuting the conclusions of even if they have literal stats to show it [like Gay points out].

[Hey hey, Gay!] KarmaPolice (talk) 14:35, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

This is one of those things that has been bothering me as of late. It really takes you down a rabbit hole of dilemmas over tolerance, respectability politics, tone policing, freedom of speech, "freedom vs equality", loaded language and all that other fun stuff. Granted, I've been in a shitty state in the last few months, but it has shown me how people can get really conflicted over this sort of thing and can seek out conclusions that just "feel better." For instance, there's this one little part in the back of my mind that starts acting up any time someone with a pro-Palestinian position says something questionable. I'm trying to push that down for myself, but I can see other people being influenced by it all, letting emotional arguments pulling them to an opposite side. Again, respectability politics and all, but that does influence a lot of people. Doesn't really seem like you can do more than ask people to play nice, but that's not going to work (and someone's going to start yelling "You can't tell people what they can and can't say!").

I don't know. The whole thing just a pile of despair and my brain's been a goddamn mess with too much shit floating around. Paul S (talk) 17:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I should clarify the thing of novelty for me is not of minorities being bigoted, that isn’t novel. The novelty is in appealing to one’s status as a minority as a rationalization or grounds of dismissal to the accusation of bigotry. There is no “surprise” in finding minorities being bigoted, and I do think Karma is right to assert that in a lot of cases it is about people being concerned about their “own bubble”. I know that is definitely true in the case of my acquaintances. But I am more interested in the fallacy of the rhetoric (beyond the obvious ad hom). I.e. given you’re white you cannot criticize me for x kind of bigotry, because whatever it is it is not as a big of deal as the racism that effects me. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I think actually the most pressing example that y’all might of experienced online is in the comments section on a post about hitting kids. You’ll often see PoC who were hit as children themselves along side the usual crowd of “I was hit and I turned out fine”, stating that opposition to hitting children, or those who haven’t been hit as children are “predominantly white” — and that is appealed to as reason why doing so is okay. I had a Vietnamese co-worker express as much to me once, talking about how normal it was among his family for kids to get hit and that it was some “white bullshit” to oppose “physical discipline”. You can call this attitude “adultism” but there is something characteristic about the rhetoric afforded to non-whites, that white people who engage in similar practices can’t appeal to. That phenomena is something I desire a term for. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd argue more the simple fact that if it's within your 'own bubble' you're basically forced to learn more about it [well, unless you simply disown them]. For example, Cheney had to re-consider any stereotypes he held re: lesbians when he realised he had 'produced' one. What's more, they have a ready-made 'guide/teacher' who will [usually] be more willing to field the stupid/insane/insulting questions with relative good humour - including but not limited to 'can't you stop feeling that way?'

For the latter bit... if anyone ever pulled the 'you're white so you cannot comment on any minority' I would simply turn around and say 'does this apply to the likes of Suvella Braverman [or some horrid example of humanity] too?' for this is just minority ultracrepidarianism. However, in the case in particular I would point out that no, the LGBT community does find that offensive and if you say otherwise, I will then curtly inform them that they are now policing my own feelings.

In fact, if I was in an onery enough mood, I might say that to them even if it wasn't true, just to fuck with their heads. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:27, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

The perennial problem concerning justice with respect to minorities is that, given a chance, minority groups can be as intolerant as any larger group. African Americans are culturally conservative. LBGT people are the alphabet people to many including one another. Minority groups, on average consider their group to be paramount and all others worthy of criticism. Asians are white-adjacent, and if they or middle-east people call out "white people," if you listen closely, they are often calling out western enlightenment values, and it has nothing to do with "whiteness". Every minority has its hierarchies. In general, it's hard to understand the hardships of minority groups to which one is an outsider. I know of no theory that adequately accounts for these problems. ^{— Unsigned, by: UncleKrampus / talk / contribs}

Being a part of a group that's faced a lot of trouble may give you extra potential interfaces for empathy with other groups that have faced a lot of trouble, but it's hardly a sure thing. At the least I might tell them that there are certainly people who are from their own communities who are part of both groups (thus where intersectionality came from), although I don't know how effective saying that really is. It seems more effective if they hear it from an actual breathing person from that experience, especially a friend or family member. (Assuming they are in fact the sort to retort "well you're white" or some such when this comes up.)

If we want a kind of "case study" minority community for these subjects, we might look at black Americans. There are a lot of black people in this country with anywhere ranging from very socially conservative to very progressive views, all in sizable numbers. You can look at discussions about how black people suffering mental illness are treated, or how black women are treated, and how these problems have been addressed as well as partly but not quite fully ever solved. I believe decades ago there was some kind of internal dialectic in the Black Panther Party regarding sexism, and even pro versus anti gay sentiments and that Angela Davis had something to do with that shift towards more inclusion long before gay inclusion was more mainstream. The history with things like that would be somewhere to look to understand how inclusion can come about organically within minority communities that previously may have held more prejudiced views. Chillpilled (talk) 00:22, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I cannot believe how many people have engaged this with an 'actually, minorities DON'T get a pass for being upset about any of this shit.' All racism is bad, yes. Systemic racism is real, yes. Parking racist/cultural ideas I that don't apply to an individual is racist, yeah? Existing in a multicultural system means you're going to carry the weight of your culture. Be a good white and laugh it off, I'm not joking, it's OK. They aren't after you. I know a white kid who honestly thinks he has the n word pass because he was friends with all the black kids at his high school and has been to jail. That's stupid. I have never witnessed him use the n word in front of a black person he doesn't know. I think he is happy he's got it, but fundamentally understands there's no such thing as the pass. Torrent (talk) 08:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

which brings me to my next point, there is no such thing as the pass. Racism is racism snarl words that have been coopted and colored are not that powerful. If I am called a 'cracker' and have space to defend myself, I generally tend towards 'I like to see myself as more of a honkey than a cracker'. Which is a very recognizably white American thing to say. I've lived with black and native and Mexican people around me, just, casually, all of us living. I had the lucky spot of being a little kid for a lot of it, in a trailer home across the street from a black family, going to school with a Shawnee kid, who had his family come to do a powwow in the gym, with a strange exchange program for a native girl from Alaska who almost always refused to speak, but had a big smile, and with nobody cartoonishly saying 'people aren't people.' Culture is culture. White culture is ambiguous, you have to carry that weight. Torrent (talk) 08:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

my idea for a modern white culture is one of informed anti-racialism. This will be hard to explain. defending your whiteness is not accepting your whiteness, which if you've read anything worth reading about race, white people are generally doing this wrong. It doesn't reach as far as white critics of white are doing it right, all race criticism is still bad criticism, this isn't that. What, at least I mean is 'what a silly insecure world, that cultures would continue to be bloodthirsty for something so inauthentic as a line on a map.'Torrent (talk) 09:28, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

The only thing worth reading about race that I ever read is Negros with guns, by Robert F. Williams. This argued that having a gun and an opinion about civil rights is on the whole superior to just having an opinion about civil rights. Seemed to make sense at the time. UncleKrampus (talk) 02:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I am also very familiar with Malcolm X, you have to be prepared to meet violence with violence. And I agree with that, until the tide shifts. Then, violence is insular and a show of who is really making a point and who is really violent. Is that the only thing, because there's a bunch a shit abot ZNH being edited or ghost written into obscurity. Fuckin, williams, so I don't know him, but that's nothing hard or special. On his side forever. Torrent (talk) 06:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Except that the LGBT community has been predominantly nonviolent, and has gotten farther in the last 50-60 years than the Black community has in 170. CorruptUser 06:31, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I dedicate this song to Trump

https://youtu.be/my7sxZ0KfHU?si=j4CEFIBmZjG05rjv

Describes Trump perfectly. --Trans Fem Agenda 16:11, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Even better: https://youtu.be/WkZ5e94QnWk?si=oq94yKYynw8kFtW- Monet ^Ye 20:27, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I learned this on my bass for his send-off in 2021. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:07, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I still think this song fits Trump super-well (I've assigned it to Adon, the Trump expy in my Freigos region project… yes, his name is a portmanteau of Adolf and Trump, because those two are kinda interchangeable in terms of representing just how rotten fascism is). Luigifan18 (talk) 03:48, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

The Afterlife Fallacy

I'm unsure what I should say to introduce this, but it seems like the very concept of an afterlife is untestable and unverifiable, so whether it exists or not is a serious unsolved void. People have to die to even find out. What can I even say about this question? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 16:11, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

In what way? The afterlife is a concept that, scientifically, lacks falsifiability. Because you have to die in order to find out whether or not it exists, and no one living can enter the afterlife by definition, it cannot be proven false (or true). Therefore, the afterlife is not a question for science.

(Though I will mention the near death experience as an interesting "tangent" to the afterlife discussion, since such has been more testable, and there *has* been some "interesting biological points" in that phenomenon. However, even here, the scope is limited towards the speculative; it is impossible to prove or disprove that NDEs relate to "the afterlife".)

Religion, of course, can have all the afterlife discussions all they want. BobJohnson (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Related to this, The Washington Post recently gave some oxygen to a bunch of quack shrinks at the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine regarding their "research" into children who "remember" their past lives.[3] The current publisher is a former Murdoch employee who seems to be slowly pushing the paper toward tabloidism in search of more eyeballs. DOPS has this untestable premise as part of their mission:[4]

“”The primary focus of DOPS is investigating the mind’s relationship to the body and the possibility of consciousness surviving physical death. In general, this process involves studying phenomena that challenge mainstream scientific paradigms regarding the nature of human consciousness.

Bongolian (talk) 17:46, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Like I said in another post regarding spiritual groups, discussing this type of thing (in a non-religious framework) is an interesting philosophical thought, but the truth is we know so little (provably) about the theoretical "afterlife" we would be experiencing, or about our "souls". Your fallacy is that it’s neither scientific nor pseudo-scientific, it’s purely inconceivable for us humans in 2024 on planet earth, there’s no reason to investigate something unknowable. New world (talk) 23:28, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

The closest question to ask is, would it hurt less? Would it be more important for an afterlife than for none? And then, it would also be worth wondering why near death experiences are culturally specific, but also universal. Torrent (talk) 10:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

It may be important to remind oneself that most formulations of the verification principle are unverifiable, which is why logical positivism is considered a bit of a dead end. As unverifiable as the claims about the afterlife are, so too are claims about the absence of an afterlife. This is part of the reason why the positivists themselves were not inclined to say that God did or did not exist -- but instead insisted that any claim to the existence or non-existence of God was meaningless. Going that far, it is not entirely obvious how one "tests" the verification principle itself. In science, testability is highly regarded and preferred. That being said, being too strict about such testability or going as far as to promote Popper's falsification principle would actually render a good amount of contemporary physics as pseudoscience (dark matter, Newtonian mechanics, string theory, etc). This is what lazy philosophical reasoning will get you. I think there is room for metaphysical speculation, enough to make the case for the untenability of there being an afterlife. At the very least, an argument to be made for the skepticism of its existence. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:22, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

On men dating/marrying younger women, sexism, redemption, a bit of venting and being an asshole

This is going to be a very long, weird, boring thread, and I’m not sure if I’m a good person after the last few days, so read at your risk.It is also a blog thread, one kind of thread that I personally don't like a lot. Ref notes are usually important, so I'd like to ask you to read them as well.

So, a few days ago me and my sister were drinking, and we ended up arguing because I told her for the first time some things about how I met my wife.

I'll tell the story, and I expect some people to get angry at me as well. I was 26, almost 27 and she was 19 (this age difference is important). Back then I was still dealing with porn compulsion and I would probably have considered myself allosexual, aromantic, and possibly hypersexual, even if I didn’t know these words yet. I was also, to put mildly, an asshole. And the one thing that made me interested in my future wife so much wasn’t her personality, but her looks alone. Despite being slim-to average, her cup size is closer to the middle than to the beginning of the alphabet, and during my porn compulsion era I could only get hard by lesbian sex and with titfucks and as someone who, at that time, only wanted to get laid and hated the idea of long-term relationships, I saw her as exactly what I was looking for. Yes it was extremely sexist from my part to see her as an object, but I while I regret my first approaches toward her, they worked and they were probably the best thing I ever did to my life. What I didn’t know back then is that, in the first moment, she also just found me attractive, and didn't think about having a serious relationship with me as well. Fast-forward, we ended up liking each other and started dating, she got pregnant, we got married, and are still very happy together.

When me and my wife found out about our original intentions some years ago, we both took a good laugh, even if we acknowledged that we were both assholes to each other. Which, to be fair, seemed obvious until this conversation with my sister. We were at different stages of our lives, and had different priorities, even if she was far more mature than expected for someone at her age and I (the asshole) wasn't very mature. But when I told this to my sister, she said that I was a horrible person, that used and manipulated (and apparently still do, not sure if she meant that) a younger, naive and less experienced girl and that I should be ashamed of myself. Me and my sister ended up saying horrible things to each other and we haven’t spoke since that day.

Is she right? Well,I am ashamed of this episode and many other horrible things that I did in my mid 20s that I'd rather not talk about here, and I can’t stop but thinking: from a moral point of view, can a wrong make a right? Again, I will never deny that I was an asshole back then, for this and for many other reasons, and that my first intentions with my future wife (having one specific type of sex with her, in case a titfuck, without considering the feelings of a young girl) were indeed awful, but we ended up finding a way. Are initial blunders a poisoned tree that can never be produce good fruits? Will our relationship be tainted forever because it started because an asshole was a manipulative asshole, even if the said asshole see what he did as something horrible today? And more important will I be an asshole forever because of something I did many years ago? She and my wife are friends, they are both psychologists I don’t expect her to talk to my wife about this subject,

There is one last thing that it’s probably worth mentioning. My sister is 27, far from old then. But I she’s also a very insecure person that cares a lot about what others think. Her best friend, who is 27 too, also dates younger women, around the age my wife was when I met her. I suspect that, as she’ll be 30 in three years, she’s scared that she might be around the end of her prime or something. Of course she isn’t old at all, but again, I do think that she’s an insecure person and I think that the reason she might not like how this situation is because she’s scared of younger women being more attractive than her. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I know her very well, and while I’m not sure, I think this is plausible. This is also important because, as I was very angry by her insinuations, I ended shoving this in her face during the discussion, another thing that makes me wonder if I’m still an asshole, even though I regret doing this.

Thanks for everyone that read this whole thing. If you think I’m still an asshole, feel free to flame me here. As I’m not sure myself, I won't mind being panned. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 02:53, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

References

If you and your wife are happy with where you are and how you got there, what's the issue? People meet in all kinds of ways, it's how it works out that matters. If your sister feels insecure it's her issue to resolve, and I hope she does resolve it, but projecting it onto you is absurd. You have your life, she has hers. (Also, as someone who was once objectified by someone who was up front about having a huge crush on me on sight (!), I admit I don't get the hysteria about it because it isn't that bad; I can think of worse things than someone finding me attractive and thinking I can be the source of sexual satisfaction, in my case it wasn't a mutual attraction and for our own reasons we're both happier that we became friends.) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:33, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the Blade. Also you are not the same person you were back then - so your current self should just forgive your current self and get on with life. Because one way you certainly won't get past it is by constantly torturing yourself about the actions of an earlier version of you. Secondly, you and your wife both talked about this and laughed about it. So it's clearly not causing you any current problem with your marriage.

finally I honestly can't see why anyone would flame you about the actions of your younger self which you clearly regret.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@GeeJayK Clearly, as far as your relationship with your wife is concerned, you've got nothing to worry about. Obviously what you have to do now is patch up your relationship with your sister. Maybe your wife could speak to her. Maybe you and your wife could speak to her together. It does indeed sound like your sister is unfairly punishing you for thoughts and feelings you had many years ago from which no real harm resulted. However, and I don't know about you, but if I were in your situation, I'd be happy just for my relative to say, "I can never forgive you for that. But..." Spud (talk) 10:16, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Wow. Talk about kicking self and overthinking this. So it was your partner's body which first caught your eye? Fuck, I think that's like how 65% of relationships start - even the smaltzy Hallmark films allow the male love interest to be a decent-looking (in a non threatening masculine way) person which the MC notices first. The 'inner workings' of sexual attraction are mainly a mystery to science (esp when it's not obviously related to youth/health/success) but from an evolutionary standpoint it worked here - your 'excessive' interest in funbags led you to a mate which also expressed an interest in you physically, leading to reproduction and (I assume) continued interest in the mother.

On the 'maturity' question - well, mere chronological age isn't everything; I've found teens with better judgement and opinions than people in their 30s (said judgement is often simply down to level of life experience). The fact there was a 'mismatch' in my opinion isn't an issue, it's whether she had enough maturity to be able to appreciate what was being 'offered'.

But I personally think the crux is your sister believes 'you manipulated a girl'. As in a child. This 'elongation of childhood' has been going on for decades now - your relationship would have been seen as perfectly fine in say, the American 50s. That there is a growing opinion that people under say 21 (or even 25) are 'too immature' to make such decisions. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:36, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

you think that makes you a bad person, try catching feelings for you ex girlfriend's younger sister. Torrent (talk) 11:04, 5 May 2024 (UTC) (the above comment was moved from another post where it didn’t belong)

I’ll be honest, I find some age gaps like that to be weird, but I’m only an outsider looking in. If you and your wife are happy and in a healthy relationship then that’s what matters. I’m not gonna be a judgy bitch, ya know? Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 20:29, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

My dad was 10 years older than mum, so what tf..... sadly he died the day before their 65th wedding anniversary!Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 22:02, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Right, so I will preface what I say with the fact that I'm just 23 (I think?) myself. I'm not a mature person. Still, I believe there are a few things I can add that may be useful things to consider.

In short, this needs elaboration. Seeing people as and treating them as an object isn't inherently immoral and doesn't immediately make you an asshole. It's the circumstances that matter. Considering someone an object is likely to cause significant emotional harm to a person, but this can be prevented by communicating your intent clearly. If you get to a mutual agreement then that's fine. Now, from what I read it seems like this didn't happen, OK, but from here on we move in steps. Being an asshole isn't a binary, it's gradual. Questions you will need to ask yourself are things like: "Did you try to deceive her?", "Did you pretend like you are interested in a long term relationship, for example to keep her around for longer?", which directly translates into a question like "Did you do things like the aforementioned that reduced her ability to make an informed decision?". What about the "manipulation" you are talking about? Just being older than your partner isn't inherently manipulative. Did you try to scare her, yell at her?

This is about aggravating circumstances. There are, however, extenuating circumstances as well. To put it bluntly, how "sick" and "desperate" were you, Ie. how much of this was truly in your control? And I emphasize truly because many times in our lives we find ourselves in situations where it's technically, physically possible to do a thing, but it's just not realistically tenable. You put it best yourself on your userpage where you say that you're a human and answer to the incentives you receive.

Additionally, how much control did she have in general? Could she have done things to get out of it if she wanted? How much resistance would you have afforded?

Lastly, I believe it's worth evaluating this from her perspective as well. How much of this happened because she let you do it to her? After all, she does have to defend herself to some degree, can't run out onto the street and then complain when someone runs you over more or less accidentally. Did she ever complain and ask you not to do things? Did you comply?

Now, hypocrisy isn't a strong argument, but it seems like it's still worthwhile to mention that the way you're saying this makes it sound like her perspective is actually quite similar to yours, albeit perhaps less "aggressive", if you catch my drift.

For what it's worth right now, you have done everything right by telling her and giving her the choice. You did wrong, you told her about it and then she can decide whether she wants to live with you or not. Apparently she still wants to be around you, and unless you are limiting her ability to make informed decisions right now, this is her active choice that she goes out of her way for, which means she believes in you as a person - which is really all that matters between you and her.

On the other hand, I can definitely see that other people may not look quite as favorably at this. So, if you ever find yourself taking a shot at romance with someone else, your best bet would be telling them about this so they have the necessary information to make an informed decision. That's a bitter pill to swallow, talking from personal experience as someone with a long, very long history as a pathological liar who lied to and eventually betrayed absolutely everyone, including people who would have been yearlong friends (~7 years in fact) if I hadn't lied to them all this time. I believe or at least hope to be better now, but you can see how making this palatable to a gril is quite painful, alright. What? Oh, right, this isn't about me, excuse me. I'm still processing myself.

So, are you an asshole? Well, it will depend on how you answer which of these questions I gave you to consider. You will find that the end result you will come up with is going to be a very complex, hah, tree of perspectives and things that were done, and it should reflect the non-onedimensionality of your personality quite well. Similarly, the actual answer to your question will not be one-dimensional either, but that's what happens when you look at complicated questions.

There's more I could say about this but I've already gone way past my allotted talking time, so I will leave it here and hope that I said something useful. Thanks for sharing your story, GJ :)

ULTRACOMFY (talk) 09:09, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

What an emotionally intelligent generation. Torrent (talk) 05:01, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Gee: I don't know if you are an asshole, if you are I haven't noticed. Question: is being an asshole part of human nature, so that you are always going to be an asshole? Are you an essentialist about assholes? Or, is being an asshole, from time to time, part of the learning process? I still am an asshole, on occasion. It's very liberating. Everyone should try it (everyone does). If you were still on speaking terms with your sister, I would tell her to get therapy, because being right about her opinion about your relationship was in no way worth sacrificing the closest part of her family. Your wife was a legal adult. Let's not be silly here. I don't call women assholes, usually...UncleKrampus (talk) 20:14, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

You should try to solve this with your sister. Then, you were morally not OK, now you seem to be. There are people married to someone 15 years younger then them, most of them are fine (depending on the age group). You two aren't too much of a shocking age gap, are you? New world (talk) 20:29, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Wow, thanks everyone for the excellent answers. I expected something far more acerbic than what I've got. I talked to my wife and she also think that the whole situation is ridiculous. She believes that what I probably regret the bulk of my actions during that time, not specifically my first approaches towards her. So, that's possibly why I (and maybe my sister too, I think, as I was an asshole to her a few times back then too) are just remembering those years as a whole. The problem is she is now a bit angry with my sister too, and I hope this sad episode won't jeopardize their friendship. Anyway, thanks everyone. I'm not going to respond all the comments here (unless someone wants to an answer about some specific point), but you all helped me with the problem so far. I just didn't get @Torrent's post. What do you mean with "try catching feelings for you ex girlfriend's younger sister"? Anyway, she's heterosexual, so she doesn't have ex-girlfriends as far as I know. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 11:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that was kind of 'you think that was bad', well I...' comment. Anyway, the interesting question is perhaps if you hadn't been the person you were then, would you still have made the initial approach to your now-partner? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes. The idea of the Butterfly Effect can be a source of solace for a bad past if the eventual results have been good. Today Gee could be a sad, lonely bachelor with a decent relationship with his sister. Zatoichi (talk) 17:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice That's a very hard question. I think some of the things I did back then were possible immoral, but the fact that I know the results makes me inclined to say yes. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 15:03, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't sound like they hurt anyone, and they got you this far, so go with it. To go back to my friend, we only met because I was feeling bad and,!out of a personal need to not sit still, I went to a drum circle I hadn't attended in years. I didn't go for the right reasons, if you will, but I was there and had someone approach me with the original stated intent of hooking up with me. As with most adults I can sort out my own relationships, and we got to a common ground; am I supposed to be offended that someone "objectified me" by taking some sexual interest in me at first sight? We ended up friends, if it stemmed from a less than Puritanical interest so what? Same principle here, it may have started off one way but it's gotten you and your wife to be happy; ride it out, you both deserve it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:23, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

American cops and American cops who shoot dogs

https://scholars.unh.edu/unh_lr/vol17/iss1/18/

Cops are trained to shoot dogs in a life or death scenario. Cops are also trained that every scenario is life or death. Somehow, this correlates with a statistic that implies just shooting dogs. So the difference in the title is nothing, until American cops stop unloading on dogs. I was attacked by a dachshund let out for a pee, while I was just walking home. It must have looked to that the tiny little dog that I was headinvg straight for them, and it bravely charged me and just kinda bonked off my leg and started barking. You know what I did? I laughed, little sweetheart, I'm not here to hurt anybody and did not break my stride. I did wave hi to the guy. Sometimes I walk to a gas station, and there is a dog that starts barking at me. I never go meet it, but I do whistle a little two-note tune every time I walk past, because I want this dog to know, I'm just walking past. It actually worked tonight. The dog that wants to bark is very useful, a bark is a good alert. This dog is a shepherd collie mix, if I can guess from across a street, while walking. You absolutely cannot do this 'ain't I just walking?' training if you are not a just walking. Any approach to the dog, as long as my heart is wide, negates the training that, ah will whistle two tones, stay on my side if the street and you have identified me. The dog barked at me, I gave the whistle, and dog just stopped barking. Y'all are never gonna believe this, but I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. Torrent (talk) 08:53, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

The point is, with a dog, it's not supposed to know me, but it a does remember me because we meet each other on very dog ass terms. It doesn't leave the back yard, I don't approach the back yard. The bark is loud, the whistle is two notes, and there's no more barking for the neighborhood. A big bark against me as soon as it sees me from across the street, not bad or dumb or unusual. It's a dog, it's gonna do dog shit. Torrent (talk) 09:18, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

This is literal. Torrent (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

There's also the psychological issue that a vicious dog is terrifying, in a way that bullets are not. When a cop shows up and has to arrest someone, well, even if the owner doesn't resist that dog is not going to be happy. CorruptUser 06:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

There are plenty of cases where cops shot dogs while mistakenly raiding the wrong address, or the right address but the perp they're after hasn't lived there for years. Carthage (talk)`

They've also shot people at the wrong address. The solution to dog-shooting is quite simple, actually; if the cop can't prove beyond a preponderance of evidence that the dog was dangerous, then the officer must pay for the dog. Your family pet is worth a lot more to you than the $500 cost of a dog, but that the $500 is probably worth a lot more to the officer than the power-trip of killing someone's pet. CorruptUser 04:24, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Technical progress, how much does it drive ethical progress?

How much or how often is technical progress the primary factor, allowing other cultural change, rather than no change, to take place?

As a smaller subtopic, I've been musing on this in relation to the ethics of war previously, but not discussed it yet. My idea being that the technical progress preceding and surrounding WWI and WWII is the primary reason that nowadays, there exists the idea of the war crime and an ethics striving to avoid such, including in international law. Without humanity being empowered to act worse than ever, there would be no motivation to strive to change the norms. Unlike with WWI and WWII where the horrors of those wars stimulated ethical progress after, with nuclear weapons some such progress seems to have happened without actual war taking place.

Recently, I read an online discussion elsewhere mentioning slavery and technical development being the main enabler of its abolition. The point was made that before the technical progress making the industrial revolution possible, it was not only a practical impossibility to abolish slavery around the world, but no such movement could reasonably have grown in force as it would have seemed too unreasonable and self-defeating for a society to stop depending, directly or indirectly, on some form of slavery. Slavery first appeared with the creation of the city, larger settlements and surpluses and centralized power, very early in human history -- as societies grew, the demand for labor simply to maintain functions began to exceed what people could do willingly and be compensated for, and slavery was the only engine capable of running civilization, without which the only other option would have been a simpler tribal or even nomadic life. This situation only changed when steam power changed the world, introducing the abolition of slavery as a moral choice which would not harm civilization. Until then, it was as laughably impossible to rid the world of slavery as it is to rid the world of capitalism at present.

I'm not sure whether this view of history is fully accurate, not having read as much on it myself. That is, it may not always be as clear-cut a matter of practical impossibility vs. possibility of ethical progress. Though in considering how another structure functions in the world at present, businesses which wastefully use enormous resources and harm the future world people will live in in many ways, while the world's population is given only the choice of participating in this or starving, it seems very similar again. I don't think this dysfunctional pattern could be given up on without opening up another Pandora's box or several of technological development, and further, maybe each such milestone is a threshold on the journey to ethics. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 12:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding slavery, poking around a bit, I don't see *too* much analysis on this topic at a scholarly level (of course maybe there's something out there that I didn't "poke"). But I don't think the link between slavery and *technology* per se is strong. Generally speaking, abolition movements began in significant numbers in Europe and elsewhere around the 18th century... which ties abolition to the Age of Enlightenment, pre-Industrial Revolution. Now, granted, this *was* post-steam engine, but the history seems to suggest that the philosophers of the 18th century had far more impact on the movement. Further complicating things though... the Age of Enlightenment *itself* is the moment in Western history when the influence of the church on "high thinking thought" declined, to be replaced with a more reason and science based approach. So perhaps there is an "overall arc" that society moving away from "mysticism shit" and authoritarianism (whether kings or king-churches), which certainly was necessary in order to actually make the Industrial Revolution happen, also happened to help make slavery seem immoral to many, too.

Now, I have seen some "random comments" on the Internet implying that, using the plantation era American South as a case study, an over-reliance on slavery can hinder society technical progress by causing over-reliance on "cheap labor" and under-investment in technology. An "interesting postulate", one that perhaps can apply towards topics of today (eg immigrant labor)... but nothing that I could find a solid study on.

The first "international" war crimes treaties were the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907... pre-dating WWI... and "warrior codes of conduct" have been around for much longer, if much more informal (eg chivalry.) So I don't see a technology as a primary factor in war crime codes. I do think it is tempting to speculate if increasingly horrific 20th century weapon technology helped accelerate the creation of formal, international codes, but it's nothing I could find scholarly treatment on, either. One factor that *has* been written about quite a bit is communication technology... specifically, media coverage of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, much of what has been written from what I can tell "has opinions" ("doves" think media coverage helped expose a war disaster, "hawks" think that media coverage helped undermine the army). My personal conclusion is that enhanced communication technology has complicated (for the better, IMHO) the abilities of nations to produce propaganda, and that's even true in this age of so much floating bullshit on the Internet. BobJohnson (talk) 13:14, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I would argue that technological progress/development makes formerly 'impractical' views/policies actually viable. In Hobbes' day [C17th England], life was 'nasty, brutish and short' for the vast majority of the population. What's more, there was no real way that this state of affairs could have been changed, because the country in this period simply did not produce enough 'surplus' to grant a remotely decent SoL to any but a tiny segment of the population. Fast forward 250 years, we have the clutch of 'Model Villages' being set up by industrialists as 'proof of concept' that yes, you can run a profitable business while still providing [a few] public services, housing which wasn't a hovel and not working your labour to death [thus demolishing the argument that it was unaffordable].

Which is perhaps the key issue; an injustice only becomes such when conventional opinion comes to the conclusion that it is avoidable. Case in point; the Irish 'Great Famine' in the 1840s; the injustice was not that it happened – Europe got hit by periodic famines [killing many] in the centuries before this – but this time it was held that the British Govt could have done a lot more to assist, but actively chose not to.

The 'slavery retarded industrialisation' argument made by economic historians is a bit more complicated than that – it is more 'cheap labour retards industrialisation'. Case in point; the use of 'white goods' to replace human servants – here is a wonderful 1921 article from the Guardian newspaper which lays it all out. More importantly, the expenditure in capital goods [represented in this case as the 'electric vacuum cleaner' and 'fuelless cooker'] creates £60 more demand for them, which means more machine tools are required to make them, which means more orders for machine tool makers and so on – in the end, that original £60 has been spent in the economy repeatedly [known as 'the multiplier effect']

You don't get this if labour is cheap. If you want to increase production, you don't get more capital goods, you just throw more bodies at it. This is known as 'extensive growth'; that while raw output is rising, it is simply down to the increase of workers doing the task – two men digging a hole might do it in half the time, but they are still shifting the same metre-cubed of earth every couple of hours. And as the ultimate measure of general SoL is that of per-head productivity, an economy hooked on limitless cheap labour is not going to get any 'richer' – for example, automated slaughterhouses do exist but not in the USA because the penchant for hiring illegals to do the task cheaper. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd also argue that technological and scientific progress drives ethical progress a lot. I also touch on this in my "The Word Of The Lord Should Not Be Static" essay, but long story short, one could argue that slavery was, while certainly repugnant, a bit of a necessary evil in pre-industrial societies without much in the way of labor-saving technology (it's kinda hard to give paychecks to everyone if one's workforce is sufficiently large). One could also argue that the money one saves in not paying slaves is inevitably spent anyways in the precautions against slaves running off to live someplace where they won't be treated like shit or revolting and mounting one's head on a pike, but I digress… I'd also argue that the discovery of DNA and the development of reliable paternity testing went a long way in making purity culture obsolete and allowing feminism to break it apart; before DNA testing, a man's only means of having full confidence that he actually fathered a woman's children was to go to outlandish lengths to prevent her from sleeping with other men — lengths that often devolved into treating women like fucking cattle. There are probably other examples of improving technology rendering formerly-necessary evils no longer necessary, but I'll stop here. Luigifan18 (talk) 16:43, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the use of the term 'slave' is an emotive one and a technical one. Slavery [for example] had effectively died out in England by about 1200 but the prevalence of both serfdom and later on bonded labour were effective 'slave-like' conditions, the use of indentured servitude was a type of 'time-limited' slavery and there was precious little real difference between agricultural slaves and sharecroppers. The important bit is the level of cheap, exploitable labour available to the ruling class - not the exact legal status of it [thus modern variants can be seen in workfare victims, illegal workers and convicts]. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:06, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I also think 'purity culture' got a bigger death-knell from the invention and later general availability/acceptability of contraceptive methods. It became possible to have pre/extra-martial activities which didn't end up with her holding a baby next year [this might in fact be part of the reason of the decline in birthrates in the advanced world; that it's become harder to have an 'accidental pregnancy', esp with teenagers.] or discovering one/both parties now had syphilis [which wasn't properly treatable until the 1940s]. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Regarding technology (the invention of the cotton gin in this case) and slavery:

“”The most significant effect of the cotton gin, however, was the growth of slavery. While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for enslaved labor to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for enslavers that it greatly increased their demand for both land and enslaved labor.

—US National Archives[5]

Bongolian (talk) 19:47, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that the idea of technology and social progress have something to do with one another. But it in not always good. War technology is another example of a whole class of technological developments that must be, at best, morally ambiguous. Even very benign-seeming inventions like the horse bridle made world empires possible.UncleKrampus (talk) 20:16, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Most technology that gets developed is done for selfish reasons IMO... with the cotton gin example given, it wasn't to make the lives of plantation slaves easier, it was to increase production and profit. Reading through the thread and the interplay between technology and societal shifts are interesting to consider; I do think tech has a significant role in the progress of ethics, but exactly how much of a role becomes murky when examining specific events. As an aside, I do recall reading that India has pushed back against Western asks for clean energy, as the argument is along the lines that developing nations have the right exploit fossil fuels to advance as Western nations have done. Impiricism (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Because I'm odd and find economic history interesting, I actually a while back asked myself 'were slave cotton plantations profitable?' and I came to the conclusion that by the 1840s the answer was 'yes, but not very'. That as suitable land and slaves were a limited resource, the prices of both rose, pushing down the 15% margin cited in the 1800s to perhaps as little as 5-6% and to have a plantation large enough to live off you'd have needed about $800k to invest [in modern values]. By the end, slaves weren't even that 'cheap'; the slave would normally cost about 3 years salary for that occupation and needed to be provided for [sacking and salf beef aren't free] and constantly needed to be watched lest they 'stole themselves' or didn't work hard enough. Judging that most field slaves died in a decade, that's not a lot of 'margin' for your slaveocrat. From the raw data, I actually suspect [from my napkin] that ditching the formal slaves and using sharecroppers may have been more profitable [even more so if it had been compensated emancipation, because that would have given the slaveocrats a big dollop of capital to invest elsewhere, such as mining, factories and railways]. But slave plantations wasn't a business, it was a 'way of living' for the Southern aristocracy, and like the big agricultural landlords in the early 20th UK they weren't going to willingly let go of it until they quite literally could no longer pay the bills from it. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:06, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice So, to sum that up, insisting on maintaining the institution of slavery was harming the Southern economy in the long run? Welp, that's getting a mention in my tangent about Abraham Lincoln for Buchanincel's description in my Progress & Regress Pokémon project. {And I went on a bit of a tangent from here, which I have helpfully split off so that I don't derail this conversation.} Luigifan18 (talk) 16:39, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

If you believe my reasoning is incorrect, feel free to point out where you believe it's wrong. I was looking at the position purely from an economic POV - that maintaining slave systems is expensive [resource-wise] and moving to a debt-bondage/sharecropping system would lessen the 'running costs' of the system. There is also the little point that while profitable [and even 6% of a very large number is still a large number] could not really 'scale' any further because the South was running out of land suitable for more plantations and even more importantly, was finding it harder/more expensive to get hold of more slaves to work it. Stuck in a position where neither extensive nor intensive growth could really happen in the backbone of your economy and your society is utterly wedded to it's continuation doesn't bode well for the long-term economic future. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:49, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Judging by an r/AskHistorians thread (which so far I find as a usually reliable source for "historical first looks", atypical for Reddit), the answer for "did slavery hurt the economy of the South in the long run" is: "yes".[6] Slavery is depicted in this thread as similar to modern mechanized farming: it's very low margin, but if it's low margin at a *big* scale, it is quite profitable. Most slave owners were *not* large plantation owners, but a few were. These few did well. (Very well -- cotton was a big US export prior to the war.) Less so for the others.

With land cheap during those times, slaves *were* one of your primary wealth assets. A couple comments point out that there was a "status symbol" in the number of slaves you owned. This coordinates with something I still anecdotally see in the Southern US, the very *institutional* and *social status* nature of "the old white guard". It's something a little more entrenched then garden-variety racism. The slavery may be long gone, and the Civil War frankly did decimate the big plantations. However... the "old guard" social networks and political connections the elite plantation owners had persisted long after the Civil War.[7] Many plantation families thus were able to recover their wealth quite nicely, within a couple of generations. In my experience, you still see some "hints and traces" of this even in the current South, at minimum at the cultural level. Although less so in areas where industry recruitment has successfully overtaken the culture of the city. (Compare Jackson MS to Asheville NC).

As depicted above, the plantation economy was very unequal. [8] You either had the scale to own much of the land and capital (slaves)... or you were a poor farmer or someone else just eeking out a living. Inequality, generally speaking, is not good for economic growth (or social cohesion).

As mentioned in one of the comments, since the "elite" of plantation society were indeed making serious bank (due to economics of scale, not because farming was insanely profitable per se), they had little reason to invest in infrastructure, education, or industrialization. This changed after the Civil War to some extent, but the North had a "running start" on these matters. The comment mentions a book by historian Gavin Wright called "Old South New South" that explores the post-Civil War economy. While the book is not easily available online, there's a review essay on JSTOR by economic historian Lee J. Alston [9] that actually seems to give a good analysis of why the Southern economy was for a long time depressed on its own. BobJohnson (talk) 18:15, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

There's also the little issue in which there was no inheritance taxes in the USA in the period in question, which means generations of slaveocrats may pass into the grave without ever knowing exactly how 'profitable' their plantations ever were because nobody came and [re]-valued their land. My napkin-figures were based upon the assumption of a person setting up a cotton-based slave plantation in the 1840s, and how much 'capital' would be required to grant our owner the income of an US Army captain [I accept however that it's quite possible the RoR might have been a bit higher due to various 'in-kind' payments ie the home farm, the slave domestic etc which again, never got an actual value].

Two interesting aspects of the Southern economy that I noted when doing my digging was that a) quite a lot of slaves were available for rent and b) more than you'd think had skilled trades. In my opinion, this was perhaps worse than the plantations for the long-term Southern economy because it strongly associated labour with slavery. This meant that if you were a poor white in the South, the chances of you in effect 'labouring' your way into the 'plantation class' [or even a simple solid middle class] was rendered much more difficult [or even impossible] - even if you'd get a job, it was most likely to be poorly-paid and would you then stand alongside a slave and work with them? For many of these, perhaps the only real option to 'get on' was to go into the 'slave-related' trades; such as an overseer, slave-catcher, guard etc [none of which add to the 'capital stock' of a nation]. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Are you by chance reading Devon Erikson's books? I see him in the twit-o-sphere, and he's obsessed with how technology brings societal progress. Similar to my own views, I suppose. But I haven't read his books. CorruptUser 19:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I haven't read that, nor any other books more directly connected to this topic.

Anyway, in response to much of the above discussion, it seems my ideas which opened this discussion are too simple to fit reality, but so is a full negation, and various "reversals" of the ideas too. Mainly, reading responses I've thought more about the development of technology, what drives it along with what it drives. On forms of slavery, I thought of the idea in a more general way, including serfdom; specifics of things which may loosely be called slavery have varied throughout history and the world, and I agree with KarmaPolice about the point being an extreme of exploiting people as cheap labor, not the precise form of it. That's also what may compete the hardest with technology.

Technology is developed and deployed to solve problems, and here a key question is, what is the problem? The circumstances of society matter greatly for what's seen as problems motivating solutions, hence for what may be given more focus and what may take off if developed. But on the other hand, "disruptive" inventions, those which result in significant societal or cultural changes when adopted by society, have consequences largely not planned when invented and adopted. With changes as large as the industrial revolution and its aftermath, the fabric of the earlier order is ripped apart one major chunk at a time, the fall of each major piece making it easier for some others to be knocked over, as various dynamics and circumstances in society are altered. Furthermore, people tend to be much worse at predicting cultural changes than technological changes. Good sci-fi futurists may foresee much that changes a century ahead in tools used, and maybe even foresee how parts of culture disappear, but they fail to see what grows in place of the old, often a cause of unwarranted pessimism in science fiction (people are too emotionally rooted in the current social order to see far beyond it).

On second thought I can see how reliance on slavery would brake progress. In fact, an alternative history scenario could be a much earlier industrial revolution, if technological development had proceeded differently after rudimentary steam engines were built in Ancient Greece. This didn't happen; for very long afterwards the steam engine was just a curiosity, a way to experiment with steam, without any practical function. No one, or no one influential, saw any point in using it to drive equipment to perform work. It's not quite clear how much would have needed to change for that to change. But among other things slave labor was ubiquitous, and whoever wanted more done sought to put more slaves to work.

Philosophy and its role, and how it develops in turn, is another topic. It was brought up by BobJohnson how that was part of bringing about both the industrial revolution and Enlightenment ideals in turn behind abolition of slavery. What next, beyond the things tied to the politics of today? It seems very difficult to predict the future of major turns in philosophy, and how it may be intertwined with technological eras further ahead. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 20:01, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

There was one rather influential author who was around for the early days of the industrial revolution, and asked the question "as the farms and the factories become more efficient, what happens when everything becomes so efficient that people no longer need to toil every hour of the day to survive?" His solution was that there'd be a form of collective ownership, and then some would work while others were free to pursue anything they desired. That man was Karl Marx, and he was wrong about several key aspects.

While the farms did become more efficient to the point where literally less than 2% of the population is involved in farming and the factories are indeed becoming more and more autonomous, people demanded more complex foods, leading to the expansion of food processing, restaurants, etc, and more importantly, people are demanding far more variety in goods than in 1850. In 1850, your idea of having "made it" was having shoes on your feet, yet it's laughable that anyone in the western world is shoeless. Virtually everyone in the Western world (except the homeless) have a larger wardrobe than the middle classes of the year 1900, even if that means hand-me-downs and thrift shops (also the standard for most of history). Furniture in 1850 was much more limited than today; it's almost inconceivable that not everyone in the household have a chair of some form, yet even a few hundred years ago only the head of the household would have a chair (if they were lucky) while everyone else either had a log or just stood, if they even had a table. Entertainment options were much more limited in the days of traveling theatre and musician troupes; if a musical band was in town, you showed up no matter how awful or droll they were because they were the only game in town. Then there's phones, computers, televisions, etc etc.

That isn't to say that a large portion of the labor force is made up of "make-work" jobs that only exist because of unnecessarily convoluted laws that only exist to keep great masses of people employed (looking at you, accountants and attorneys), but the more efficient we become the more we demand.

For a time.

But what happens when we collectively do decide that we don't need millions of accountants, attorneys, and other bureaucrat-type jobs? What happens when we simplify the legal system and tax code? Will we have massive public-works projects, where we pay people to dig holes only to fill them back up? Or will we pay people to do nothing a la basic income?

I suggest a different answer, because there's always work to be done. What I think should happen is that instead of creating make-work jobs or paying people to do nothing, we instead create actual jobs in public education, nursing, etc. All those attorneys? More public defenders and prosecutors; no one who is innocent should ever need to take a plea deal to avoid the excessive cost of the legal system. All those accountants? Every public school should have quality math teachers. And so on. Does this mean "big government" and taxes on farms/factories/business? Quite possibly. But we should never pay people to do nothing. CorruptUser 16:58, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter if someone has shoes on their feet if they're still a wage slave. The means of production are still privately owned, and so the class relations Marc described remain more or less the same. Carthage (talk) 19:25, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Also just because tech hasn't made communism feasible yet doesn't mean that will always be the case. You could easily argue that Marx's general prediction could still come true with future tech advancement. It is also being ignored that communism would require a social revolution in addition to a technological one, neither of which are impossible. The transition from feudalism to capitalism required a a revolutionary transformation of society, so there is precedent. Carthage (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Meh, it's hard to treat Marxism/Communism as a seriously viable alternative to the current framework when it's almost entirely made up of the losers who can't "make it" in the current system that support it. Including Marx himself. Especially him. CorruptUser 20:24, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

It's difficult to think of any large scale implementation of pure Marxism/communism -- those that have tried have usually ended up with governments that have ended up wildly different from pure Marxist dogma. At the same time... unchecked capitalism tends to lead to inefficiencies of its own (largely because like hell anyone with "the big bucks" is going to strive for a truly "free market"), and it is IMHO poor form to be dismissive of the "losers" from the system (particularly since the "losers" might turn towards a self-defeating populism).

It was said of FDR (by FDR himself) that his New Deal -- which included implementing various degrees of safety nets -- saved capitalism from a major turn towards communism, a stance I agree with to a reasonable degree. While contemporary society has different problems, I do think that we are at a similar point -- Western societies currently are full of movements that display strong discontent with the neoliberal status quo, often justifiably (even though much of the discontent is displayed in a more ruscism manner). I'm not one who thinks that complete abandonment of the current system is necessary, but it is clear that these populist movements need some sort of response. Else wise the risk is the populists take over, and a dogmatic system ends up in place that is worse for everyone involved (except cronies, perhaps). BobJohnson (talk) 23:37, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

In which Luigifan18 can't help self-aggrandizing

{Continued from outdent 1, indent 5 in main thread} I named Buchanincel after James Buchanan because of his ties to white supremacy and other forms of people who throw tantrums when they don't get what they want when they want it "the respect, deference, and obedience due to the ruling class socially superior". Though Buchanincel, as can also be taken from the name, is also aimed at lampooning the manosphere, to the point where I felt compelled to bring up the Ambition of Truth chicken coop case upon stumbling upon it through a wiki walk from RationalWiki:Pissed at us. (…But that's enough rambling, I've diverged way too much from the original topic; I have another thread here for talking about the Progress & Regress Pokémon. In fact, I'm just gonna split this sub-remark off so the original conversation can continue on its proper course…) Luigifan18 (talk) 16:39, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Who the eff is "Drake" and "Kendrick"

Been hearing that some rappers are angry at each other. I guess their names are Drake and Kendrick, but I'd never heard of either of them before this spat of theirs. Are there actual emotions running behind people's intrigue with it, or is it just a fun little musical spectacle? MirrorIrorriM (talk) 21:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Top dogs in the rap game shitting on each other. Kendrick bringing allegations of drake being a pedo and minor toucher. Meanwhile all drake did was dissing on kendrick’s small feet. I think drake fell off in talent after god’s plan, but this beef now making his popularity sink as well. Meet the grahams cold. 💀2600:387:15:1511:0:0:0:4 (talk) 21:15, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I guess there's enough "meat" in this feud for there to be a whole Wiki article on it. I haven't paid a lot of attention to it. I do think it's basically celebrity drama. BobJohnson (talk) 21:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I feel old after reading that. Impiricism (talk) 21:44, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Ig im pretty young compared to everyone else in this wiki, still in HS. 2600:387:15:1511:0:0:0:4 (talk) 21:57, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Drake and Kendrick Lamar have been "big" in mainstream pop rap/R&B since the 2010s, they're not *that* new. :) Music however has been so balkanized since the Napster days. Sure, in the US, R&B/hip-hop and country tend to be the "top charters", but there are so many other sub-genres out there, and so many artists. "Name recognition" is no longer a big thing, there are few current musicians in the "megastar" space these days. (As big as Drake and Kendrick Lamar are in their respective genre, I don't consider them a "megastar" on the level of, say, a Michael Jackson... or even a Taylor Swift).

Also, to help you feel "younger", the current Billboard Top 200 albums [10] contains entries from the Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, and even Journey's Greatest Hits. BobJohnson (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I miss the days of 2Pac and Biggie, where if rappers had "beef" they actually had fights instead of this fake-fight commercial BS meant to garner attention and album sales. CorruptUser 19:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Blud forgot reggaeton in hispanic areas like mine, but I see either way. Despite being young I am damn lost in the pop sphere as I now mostly listen to 90s screamo. And as last comment said mfs too scared to rlly make music beef spicy these days leaving it up to the fans like kendrick fans vandalizing drakes home on google maps. 2600:387:15:201A:0:0:0:5 (talk) 19:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bob

Music has always been fragmented, at least since the days when there were multiple radio stations that focused on their own genres. MTV sort of made it less fragmented for a bit; you got the music that they played, so you got exposed to everything that Viacom wanted you to see. Then the internet came and made MTV irrelevant, and everyone ended up back in their own bubbles again. CorruptUser 05:49, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

The problem with radio and even MTV (past the first few years when they'd play anyone who produced a video) "back in my day" were that: A) radio stations and MTV were often limited to a narrow range of regurgitating the "top hits", and B) subgenres that weren't popular enough for a radio station either had to resort to "other means" to get heard (eg tape trading), at least until it got popular enough for the bigwigs at radio/MTV to notice (this happened with both "alternative music" and rap music). Genres were also divided neatly with little to no mixing of eras. This "limited promotion" made it more possible for "big names" to exist, but overall it was honestly shit for music, because (as you say) music really is naturally balkanized, it's half a social phenomenon.

My understanding is that "back before my day" there was both more DJ influence in radio as well as more "regional" / "local" variety. Where there wasn't, things like pirate radio helped "bridge the gap". Local bands were still a thing when I grew up, but not in most of radio (the community radio station and one oddball UHF channel excepted). The town I'm from (the Tampa FL area) actually was notable at the time for its death metal scene; no way that got played in "standard radio" (now or then). One local band (Savatage) actually got well-known in the "progressive metal" scene. I think they were occasionally played on MTV's "Headbanger's Ball" (one of MTV's late night genre music programs) but certainly not the standard radio (at least until Savatage accidentally figured out they could actually make some good money writing Christmas metal music, thus birthing the far better known Trans-Siberian Orchestra).

This is why some in the industry, like your Steve Albini (RIP) types ([11]), actually were quite happy with what Napster birthed. It nixed the record industry as the major gatekeeper of taste. To some extent the YouTube/Spotify algorithm has replaced it, sure. But unlike record labels, the Internet provides much less of a barrier for publication. The music mega-star is sort of (not completely) dead as a result, but in the Internet era, it seems like more musicians can "find their niche" and have long careers without having to worry about not having the "big hit", like they used to.

The biggest change I've seen with the Internet is that it seems like not only do people "genre hop" a lot more, it seems like people "era hop" as well far more than they used to. BobJohnson (talk) 13:20, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I will try and keep this short and digestible. I was born in the late 1980's and was told I had to have a favorite British invasion band. I don't care what anyone says, it was not the Beatles. I used to watch Drake as an actor on a teen drama called Degrassi. It was a melodrama, and Mr Drake's character was a basketball star who wound up in a wheelchair. Then I had some friends, and this is now late oughts, who were trying to boogey down down to Drake. just out of high school. In my opinion, that's like being a grown man trying to say 'Will Smith' might be the greatest. It is, on a technicality, still the Willenium. I didn't like Drake. Then Kendrick dropped Money trees and I was like 'I get it, but not for me, and I can't understand all the white homeboys loving it'. Except I can.

People love hearing a word that they recognize with an interesting pronunciation. Ya Bish was fine? I hated 'ya Bish' I heard it like a hundred times a day. Sia also had Chandelier, where she, an Australian woman, took on a lyric 'one two three' and gave it a 'wuon two tree'accent as if she was from barbados. which does make sense because she was trying to get Rhianna to sing that song. But then Rihanna sings 'ner ner ner ner ner' in an entirely different song instead of 'work work work work work' and it's implied you don't need to use words to make music. Which is nothing against the idea of working. It's just not actual language out of or within context. My least favorite genre of music is not country, is not edm, is not pop. It is vocal jazz.

I don't listen to Drake or Kendrick today, but I have heard their early stuff, and I can say, man, who listens to Will Smith? Kendrick, I don't know, I haven't been keeping up, I liked the second album better than that first with money trees cutie backup lil Wayne bullshit, a lot of my friends boogied down to it and left when it got good. King Kunta was great funk, but I guess he wasn't rapping enough. But didn't Drake drop a single for his kid like it was real? I'm not on the scene, for years, but I do believe Drake has always been an analogue of Will Smith. An actor so powerful he can convince a generation he is also making music. I don't really care about the beef, but I have seen Drake pretend to be crippled in a Canadian teen melodrama, and so had friends blast his tracks in the early 2010s. I don't care who I'm talking to or who I might be defending, in this beef I have exactly one opinion.

Drake sucks, and I can't believe that's ever been controversial. Torrent (talk) 10:53, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

An argument for intelligent design I recently heard.

How could one answer the argument for intelligent design presented as follows:

"P1: Large amounts of specified information exist in a cell.

P2: Despite a thorough search, no natural process has been observed that produces large amounts of specified information.

P3: Intelligence has the ability to produce large amounts of specified information.

Conclusion: Intelligence design presents the best, reasonable explanation for the origin of the first cell."

I have been quite at a loss for how to answer this. ^{— Unsigned, by: ThatJoshuaPerson / talk / contribs}

I don't know, it sound a bit like a non sequitur, but I think our article on Hoyle's fallacy might answer you. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:59, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

The entire field of Information theory would likely disagree with premise 2. That suffers from the same problem of thinking that the second law of thermodynamics rules out increasing ordered complexity in an open system. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

@GeeJayK Being a non sequitur would mean it isn’t logically valid, which would mean the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises if they were true. I think you would be right if we hinged our interpretation on “observed” because that arguably introduces an implicit inductive premise — making the argument non-deductive and hence not valid. You can avoid that by interpreting the second premise as a more definitive existential claim (that no such process exists). There is way to reframe each of the sentences to make the whole argument logically valid, and the principle of charity would call upon us to do so. Regardless though, even if the argument was valid it wouldn’t be logically sound. The strongest interpreted premises would still include a number of false postulates. There is also a bit of vagueness in the term “specified information” (As opposed to unspecified information?). There is a lot more “non-coding” DNA then there is DNA that codes proteins. Does it matter to the premise if there is more “junk DNA” in living cells then DNA with useable information for work? The conclusion is also framed as if the argument is meant to be abductive, which seems unnecessary because a deduction could be had on the stronger interpretation via a derivation from negation. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:27, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I have also wondered about this "specified information" thing which turns up a lot in ID chat. How does "specified information" differ from common-or-garden "information"?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:52, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

"Complex and specified information" appears to be a term traceable to the Discovery Institute. In this NBC news article [12], the example given to illustrate the concept is a Shakespeare sonnet (complex and specific) compared to the letter "A" (specific, not complex) and a long string of random letters (complex, not specific). In their view, DNA is a complex and specific encoding of information. Therefore, it must have been designed. Essentially an argument from design. (Edit: hey, there's a Rationalwiki article on this ID term!)

The NBC News article helpfully brought up nylon-eating bacteria, which obviously only came into existence after nylon was invented in the late 1930s, as something in which the above goddidit arguments tend to fall apart. BobJohnson (talk) 13:27, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

OK, so there really is no difference between "Specified Information" and regular old-fashioned "information" - except when it's being used in some ID doubletalk.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:39, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

"P1: A biological cell is complex.

P2: I cannot readily fathom how such a thing came to be. Google searches bring up nothing. Scientists don't have conclusive answers (yet).

P3: Goddidit." - Impiricism (talk) 00:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Premise two in the first syllogism above is falsified by the observed natural processes of mutation + natural selection. Bongolian (talk) 06:25, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Even if all the premises were true it would still be an "argument from ignorance". In other words "we do not know what could do this therefore god/aliens/fairies did it."Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:41, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Treat as 'argument from design', of which I normally deploy the 'infinite monkey theorem' in response. When presented with the creationist conclusion, I will then deploy my 'rogue clowns' response - that [insert stupid thing] did it instead and both theories has equal evidence. In this case, 'aliensdidit!' I have no beef with you believing in a deity/ies, but please don't try to tell me there is actual evidence they exist [but I accept there is zero evidence they don't either]. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:33, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

"P1: Large amounts of specified information exist in a cell." "Information" refers to an artifact of human understanding. Humans create information, through the process of understanding the environment. "P2: Despite a thorough search, no natural process has been observed that produces large amounts of specified information." Humans do all the time. "P3: Intelligence has the ability to produce large amounts of specified information." The argument catches on. "Conclusion: Intelligence design presents the best, reasonable explanation for the origin of the first cell." This argument states, in other words, that reality has a definite structure, and calls the details of that structure "information." Great. I think that means that we exist.

The argument says in other words P'1: reality has structure. P'2: no natural process has been observed to produce large amounts of structure. P'3: God, if they exist, would have the ability to produce structure. Conclusion: gods are the best explanation for structure in the universe. This is a real appeal to ignorance.UncleKrampus (talk) 16:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for the responses. My Christian parents shockingly let me do some more research on abiogenesis ([No Intelligence Allowed]), and I had also come to the conclusion that P2 is unjustified. By the way, I had come across that argument in a periodical my parents acquired at church, which was rather oxymoronically titled "Reason and Revelation."ThatJoshuaPerson (talk) 21:47, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

On Social Verschlimmbesserung

Here's something that I was somehow thinking of for days now involving social justice and the things that people do. Sometimes, poorly executed initiatives in social justice only make things for everyone worse instead of better due to poor wording, lack of critical thinking, or overzealous demands that damage civil liberties for everyone else. It miffs me because it happens quite often, and Poe's Law that causes good faith and bad faith cases involving social justice to intermingle into a fog of uncertainty. Are they actually trying to make lives better, or are they just trolls or agents of chaos?

Links to a rough definition for the word: [13], [14]

Any examples of this happening in the political and corporate worlds, and anything that can be done with this? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 13:56, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

That's a nice oxymoron, Verschlimmbesserung = Verschlimm (worse) + besserung (improvement). One can also see that sentiment expressed in Cory Doctorow's idea of enshittification with regard to the internet. Bongolian (talk) 14:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I’m not sure that enshittification is a good example, since the German phrase appears to be mainly about (unintended?) bad consequences of trying to make improvements, whereas enshittification is mainly due to chasing (short term) profits at the expense of everything else, not actually trying to improve anything beyond the quarterly earnings.

If I had to point to examples, it might be adding lead to gasoline to prevent engine knocking and thus improve efficiency and reliability. Or the use of CFC gasses for refrigeration and in spray bottles. Both seemed like good ideas at the time but had some nasty consequences (both being discussed in depth in “Merchants of Doubt” btw).

An inversion might be something like the Bolsheviks seeing the disasters of the tsarist regime and the gradual societal collapse during WWI in Russia as positive, because these events would further their own revolutionary cause. While Lenin might not literally have said “the worse, the better”, he seemed to have adhered to the sentiment. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:06, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

German here. ScepticWombat is right that Verschlimmbesserung ist any change to a thing that seeks out to improve things but inadvertedly made it worse. Anyone breaking the rule "never change a working system" would commit a Verschlimmbesserung. ULTRACOMFY (talk) 16:01, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Yet there are some people who DO attempt to change a working system in the name of social justice. That was my initial concern. (But then again, a system may work for some, but not for others. Yet the Verschlimmbesserung that could occur would mean that in an attempt to make the system work for the latter group, it no longer makes it work for the former group. Nuance.)TheEternalOutsider (talk) 08:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

The Bolshevik example isn't really the same thing, because their hope/belief was that the 'old' needed to be broken before the 'new' [ie them] arose, and things were a lot easier if said 'old' breaks themselves up first. That was the whole basis of their policy of 'revolutionary defeatism'; they wanted Russia to lose WW1 because said ruling class be completely discredited and weak [and thus, allow the Bolsheviks to make a play for power].

Now, you wanted an example, and I shall provide; the UK benefits system for disabled people. The Govt had this theory - 'too many disabled people are on the books' and came up with a wheeze 'closer management/testing of claimants' so they could catch more fakers. So you had people having their cases reviewed on a yearly basis rather than rarely/never like before. Problem was, this resulted in lots of genuinely sick people with permanent/worsening conditions having to on a yearly basis explain to some poorly trained, outsourced box-ticker that no, the 'dementia', 'heart failure' or 'missing limbs' won't get better in the next few months and no, just because I can sometimes make a cup of tea it doesn't mean I can do shelf-stacking for 40 hours a week.

I estimate some 75% of all disability claimants have medical documentation so firm that no physical meeting was needed, perhaps half of these with conditions which won't ever get better [meaning even a case review was unneeded], and the majority of 'fakers' were more knowlegeable/skilled than the person trying to catch them out. Most of the people who get caught out are genuine folks who simply didn't get how the dance went, which is shown by the fact something like 75% of appeals were successful.

If the system was designed to 'save money', it clearly is a 'verschlimmbesserung' because all the extra admin would have cost more than the 'fakers' it caught [unsurprisingly, UKGov refuses to tell us how much all this cost]. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

The Flood "Experience"

Hey, it's me again. This summer, my Christian parents are dragging me to Arizona to have more YEC shoved up my you-know-what. Quite unfortunately, I don't become a US citizen until I'm 18. Here's the trip link: https://store.apologeticspress.org/products/2024-the-flood-experience . Any tips for keeping one's sanity/ having fun with YEC's? I figured I'd simply ask "Dr. Jeff" questions every chance I got, and count the number he avoids/Goddidits. I'll post the highlights of the trip when I get back!

PS: I do think I will be able to enjoy the trip, I'll just ignore Dr. Jeff's shit and read the placards! ThatJoshuaPerson (talk) 22:02, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Enjoy some beautiful Arizona natural wonders! (And most national/state parks have placards that described what geological events really happened to make the place, so you can get informed anyways. :) )

This Apologetic Press sounds like a "barrel of fun" if looked at with proper askew (it's YEC goddidit arguments all the way, so they can safely be ignored). I have no idea how one goes from a biomechanical engineering Ph.D. at Auburn to what Dr. Jeff is doing now... but that's engineers and woo for you. I guess they are loosely affiliated with Churches of Christ; if the Wiki is correct, they deserve damnation in hell in my books for being a denomination that prohibits musical instruments in worship. :p Also, 20 years ago, unsurprisingly for a church these days, one of their elder leaders had a thing for young teen guys. (Given that the age of consent in Alabama is 16, he at least "knew enough" to keep things "barely legal"). BobJohnson (talk) 00:28, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

You might want to read our Global flood article first to get your skeptical hat on. But looking at your link - that visit is quite expensive! Base of $599 with the added insult of an additional "electronic processing fee of $15"!Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 08:03, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

If you have any interest in actual geology, you could bring along or read a book beforehand about Arizona geology. Roadside Geology of Arizona can be 'borrowed' and read for free online at the Internet Archive,[15] but your local library might also have a copy. If you haven't been to the Southwest US before, Arizona scenery is quite beautiful but June-July can be brutally hot in much of the state. North of the state a bit less so. Jeff Miller pick those dates so that people could get a taste of H E double-hockeysticks? Bongolian (talk) 08:07, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Treat the whole affair as a visit to a fictional theme park. Take in the 'displays' with a wry little internal smile, imagining stupid things like Noah having to muck out thousands of creatures every day or trying to persuade the lions to go with him without eating him etc. Think of the story being told, consider how you'd adapt it better for a film and so on. Shit like this only gets to you if you let it, and as you're not paying for the thing, at least you're not being fleesed personally. If you wish to be subversive, find/download a podcast or YT audio of why the flood story sucks, put it on your phone and listen to it while you're being led around the thing [in fact, you might even be able to find a take-down of the very thing you're looking at]. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:45, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Dramatica

See the main article on this topic: Encyclopedia Dramatica

Encyclopedia Dramatica has been taken offline by Feds, it's unlikely to come back. 167.172.50.25 (talk) 00:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Who knows why it's offline this time. I saw in one of the "troll spaces" that some troll claimed an admin claimed that they did something that violated TOS or something, but "your mileage may vary" on whether that's true. Trolls in general make for poor web administrators. (It was only a few months ago when ED went offline briefly for failing to pay their DNS registration...) BobJohnson (talk) 02:04, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Trolls make for bad admins? In other news, water makes things wet… Luigifan18 (talk) 02:05, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

I’m going to miss the William Tecumseh Sherman article, in part because of how it tied into your point. The community worships the aspect of the man that burned it all down, and the article is inspiring that way. They were self-aware there, and it was fun. Artificius (talk) 01:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

That page at least is still on Internet Archive.[16]

Ultimately, ED is sort of a "2000s Internet troll" artifact; even the Sherman article can't escape an "over 9000!" joke. :p That's not necessarily a bad thing, though; the problem with the current "troll space" on Kiwi Farms, 4chan, and Twitter is that they are often both not self-aware, and many times actually are horribly obsessed with Others (instead of it being more immature "for the lulz" type stuff). One era gave us Rickrolling and Mister Splashy Pants, the next era gave us Pepe memes and obsessions with Chad Thundercocks and red pills. Sigh. Now "get off my lawn", as they say. :) BobJohnson (talk) 02:11, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Rumors of Some Law in Colorado

I don't really trust the citizens of Fremont to give me accurate reports when it comes to politics. But I heard some of them talking about a law that would prevent charges from being filed against a child 12 and under if they assault another 12 and under sexually. I checked all over and found no record or proposal of such a thing. The lady I heard it from said her kid was assaulted by a younger one which I'm VERY skeptical about. I'm just wondering if this is really true or if other peeps here might know.47.5.66.54 (talk) 02:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like a ^{[citation needed]} case, I can't find anything about it either.

There was a vote in the Colorado legislature a few weeks ago [17] which concerned a measure that would allow victims of child sex abuse could sue their abusers even if the statute of limitations had ran out. (The vote was not whether to enact this law, but to send the law on the November ballot). It failed due to unanimous Republican opposition, as they were concerned about the constitutionality of it (as well as, um, protecting the institutions that allowed the abuse, it seems). Not sure if this is what led to that garbling. BobJohnson (talk) 02:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't know about the state in question, but [at least here in the UK] a 'sex offender' conviction can/will/should a) follow you about like a bad smell and b) fuck up your life somewhat. There's also the issue is that the term 'sexual' can be sometimes [in my own opinion] have a too wide a definition [American ones seem to be much broader than here] and I could see a situation where something which slips into the 'sexual' category on technicalities. Couple this with the fact that if both parties are under 12 you could argue that curiousity/playing/copying something they shouldn't have seen is more likely to be the motivation than sexual activity. Lastly, if you have a child who is genuinely over-sexualised at that age, I'd argue they need help, not a crime-sheet. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:34, 14 May 2024 (UTC)