Broadly speaking, you probably agree with the large majority of the views commonly attributed to whichever group you identify with - what are the exceptions? Something that if you mention without a caveat immediately makes people jump to conclusions or even attack you?
That we should renationalise all public services here in the UK. I genuinely believe that. I’m essentially a left of centre capitalist, but I believe private companies using shared national infrastructure for shareholder profit under the lie of ‘competition’ is bullshit.
Thames water was a clusterfuck
That having a better education is directly tied to income levels, so talking down to ‘idiots’ is actually some bougie bullshit.
You’re not entirely wrong but their are outliers like me! I graduated top of my class from a boogie High School (the most expensive in CT) I dropped out of college and now work as a dishwasher, its the most fun I’ve had in my past decade of employment from various companies, and the best paying? Why does that happen? I’m being paid $18/hr to wash dishes, its my dream job (no customer interactions) I studied CS in college and I’m very literate in all computer related tech (Fuck AI)
Lemmy is a website full of people who are left-populists on paper, but hate the population.
The average Lemmite should never be in charge of anything that their IT degree doesn’t qualify them for.
Lemmy wants the baby without the labor pains.
“Destroy Capitalism!”
“But what about the millions who will die in the ensuing chaos!?!”
“Well dont do it that way!”
“Which way then?”
“DESTROY CAPITALISM!”
Yeah the system is fucked and definitely needs change, but its either gradual or violent and as someone who came up with rough crowds in rough places. Most people arent cut out for when the actual violence starts.
In America its still not ok to be an atheist. Truly weird that it is ok to be part of several different mutually exclusive cults who all believe things that if they were not connected to a proper religion would get you laughed at but if you don’t have a cult its not ok.
I get why the whole “colorblind” thing ended, but what we replaced it with is even worse.
At this point I don’t really have anyone I identify with.
Well I guess it’s that I have a difficult time understanding trans folk. My belief is that we should be working towards accepting and loving our bodies regardless of how they are formed, with all of their flaws intact. I feel complicated towards cosmetic surgery as a result of this belief.
Obligatory caveat: I still love trans people, you’re ALL valid and I continue to learn from you.People that live as their chosen gender are happier. People who don’t are much more likely to kill themselves. Hard to argue with that.
I mean yeah, hard agree, but Trans people ain’t a monolith and I would like to learn more about them.
I don’t like neopronouns
neopronouns
never heard this term until today. Thanks.
A neopronoun is any gendered pronoun that isn’t she, he, or they! The history of neopronouns in English goes back a couple hundred years- though the term “neopronoun” itself wasn’t coined until recently- and they can range from pre-existing terms like “it” to something made up for one’s own personal use. The more you know!
Religion and spirituality, broadly considered, are not inherently evil. That organized religion can justify great evils is a function of human weakness, nothing more.
Then again, this is coupled with a ‘there is no god but that we create ourselves/god has no material existence, but is no less powerful for that’’ POV, which is admittedly a weird one that I’ve been pulling at for a bit. Nothing to do with the nature of our reality or first causes, everything to do with our relationship to reality.
Yep
Came here to comment on the religion part. Humans are biologically programmed to be in a tribe and we need an “other” and we need a bad guy. On its own religion could be a neutral or a good thing, but it fits that need for tribalism and a common enemy and feeling superior. It’s the same mindset as nationalism or racism or when fans of sports teams riot and beat the shit out of each other for no reason. If religion never existed humanity would have just discovered some other way to segregate ourselves, feel superior, order each other around with arbitrary rules even the in group can’t agree on, and isolate and kill those who don’t comply. Add in manipulative people who are all too eager to hop into leadership roles and use them for their own power and selfish gain and you have pure evil, but it’s the system, not the religion, that’s a distraction.
I can’t say that I disagree with anything here. What bugs me about it is that at an idea at the core of many religions is that all us humans are of one kind, some particular expression of the universe (however that’s conceptualized), and can/should act in that fashion, towards each other and the world around us.
But it’s almost always turned into a footnote among a bunch of other bullshit that perpetuates tribalism, subjugation and violence. Going to use words that are easily poked apart, but I hope the idea comes across: we all contain something of the divine. It’s a miracle we exist at all, and maybe it’s possible we can all act like it and set aside meaningless divisions. One ‘tribe’, the world over, created by mutual recognition and respect rather than force and othering.
Literally all the bones are there, you just have to cast out the outdated divisive bullshit. But doing so also involves actively rejecting some ugly facts about humans as a group, which is, well, hard - to put it mildly.
Idk - this is all why I don’t talk about my beliefs (such as they are) too much, and just try my best to act with the good stuff above in mind as much as possible.
I’m not at all religious now, but I was raised Christian. There’s some awful, awful shit in the Bible, but Jesus was such a chill dude. If everyone acted like Jesus, the world would be an awesome place. He was just a hippie who drank wine and hung out with his bros and made friends with prostitutes and outcasts and condemned the church leaders who abused their positions. According to legend he was the legit son of God and yet when he was asked to judge sinners he was like yo dudes that’s not my place only my dad can do that I’m not worthy and neither are any of you, maybe instead of worrying about what other people are doing you should deal with your own issues, ok? Can you imagine if people actually lived like that? I’m not as familiar with other religions, but from what I know other major prophets were pretty chill, cool dudes too. If people actually followed the prophets of their religions instead of being assholes, religion would be great. Instead we have poor people being exploited, women and children being abused, and the entire system is fucked and corrupted because of human nature run amok.
100%. It’s why (when I take a look at things from my bottom-up god POV, which is a key stumbling point here re:implementation) I think a Christian movement that interprets the fucked system behind such outcomes as ‘Satanic’ corruptions to be cast aside would be interesting and possibly pretty cool. Or it’d just continue the cycle of fucked up shit with new window dressing, idk.
Satanic in quotes 'cause there’s lots you can unpack with that term/figure, but you know, popular broad strokes version - evil force trying to keep us from what we can be. It’s really just us getting in our own way IMO.
Truth of the matter is people who aren’t religious always have a proxy for religion in their lives, which they irrationally worship.
And they are often prepared to justify evil towards others in defense of that proxy and use it to justify their social and moral superiority to those that don’t hold to it the way they believe they do.
It’s just how human beings are. But a lot of them are in rampant denial of it if you confront them over it.
People have passions about other things than Jeebus. They are often irrational and they tend to become attached to their pre-existing notions. These basic facts about humanity doesn’t make their other passions a proxy for religion.
Typical cultist thinking. People’s politics and thought processes are a religion like bald is a hair color.
Believing in facts and reality over ideology and idealism.
And as an extension of that, focusing what people do, not what they say they do or want to do.
(everyone hated that and took it personally)
I’m a Democrat who values the 2nd amendment and doesn’t think we should just ban guns in the U.S. Stronger regulations and safety measures? Sure, absolutely. But I do think people should have the right to own and use firearms for recreation, hunting, personal protection, etc.
I think you’ll find that most people by a wide margin agree that prohibition of anything generally doesn’t work, and what they are looking for is regulations and enforcement.
I know plenty of people on the Left who want to ban guns, European-style. They think anyone who owns one is partially psychopathic and have a fetish about killing things. You’re right, they’re probably in the minority, but I question by just how much. I don’t think they’re as fringe as some people would like to believe.
Personal firearms ownership is legal in Europe.
My understanding was that it’s only legal under highly restricted conditions. If you’re just Joe Schmoe, you’re not going to be able to get a firearm just because you have no criminal history and no evidence of mental illness.
Yes but if you’re looking for a total firearms ban, Europe is a bad example. They have a long history of participation in hunting and shooting sports.
There are a lot of vocal anti gun nuts out there though.
Where I live, mentioning you own, or would like to own a gun, gets you labeled as a fascist Nazi/proto murderer. That’s regardless of all your other beliefs or political positions.
And there’s a fair amount of 2a absolutists out there too.
I agree up to the point where the amendment is pointed at as disallowing reasonable regulation. If that’s the case, end 2A. But my goal is regulation, not abolishment. If 2A folks (mainly the Supreme Court here) can accept regulation existing in parallel with 2A, then I’m happy.
I’m mainly thinking about preventing school shootings and domestic violence and murder, so restrictions of some sort on mental health / violent history.
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I believe privately owned cars and on-street parking should be banned in cities, except for very few regulated exceptions, and replaced with municipal car sharing.
I don’t identify myself with any side in politics. Why pick a side when every side is shit.
The thing that spurred me into paying more attention to things politically, was the thought that, you can’t complain if you don’t vote. If you’re upset with the system, but do nothing, even the bare fucking minimum of showing up and voting, then your complaint really doesn’t matter.
You can also just pick and choose what you want from each and every side, and leave what you don’t like on the table.
Like a buffet.
But people tend to get really really angry at you when you do this, and label you whatever side they hate most.
That Lemmy can be just as bigoted, hostile, and close-minded as the sites it set out to replace; it drives out views which aren’t in line with the gestalt majority. This thread, then, mostly gets answers which are on the mildest end because those who actually hold opinions out of step with the majority know damn well not to speak up, or, well… be immediately othered.
in my experience that’s especially true of certain instances, but not others. mostly along ideological lines.
Yeahs and people are on good behavior in posts like this. The “lemmy” doesn’t come out as much.
This thread, then, mostly gets answers which are on the mildest end because those who actually hold opinions out of step with the majority know damn well not to speak up, or, well… be immediately othered
Bigotry against the bigoted isn’t bigotry.
Care to provide specific examples? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just curious as to what things about this place that you consider to be “bigoted”. Because my experience has been that the opinions that aren’t tolerated here are themselves the bigoted opinions.
Look back on my profile at the recent comment where I mentioned Johnny Depp being a disgusting drunk rapist who groomed a woman half his age and sued her for defaming him when she spoke about the backlash she received for speaking out against his domestic abuse.
Because my experience has been that the opinions that aren’t tolerated here are themselves the bigoted opinions.
This is a tautology. All you are saying here is ‘anything i declared bigoted shouldn’t be tolerated’.
other people may not agree with your interpretation of bigoted. I see all sorts of hateful bigoted crap on here, it’s just about what group it’s targeting. I got banned from Autism community because I pointed out their bigoted hatred of ‘normies’ was messed up and many members there had a weird superiority complex about autism.
All you are saying here is ‘anything i declared bigoted shouldn’t be tolerated’.
Yep. Basically this. And to bring it back around to OP’s question:
[Opinions] you mention without a caveat immediately makes people jump to conclusions or even attack you?
…well, it feels like this is a great example. Suggest that the fediverse has a bit of a bigotry problem, and you immediately get hit with an implication that no, everything is fine, if you’re not happy then you must actually be the bigot!
Turns out that people are assholes regardless of platform
Oh man, to test this, just go somewhere and defend women. You’ll be destroyed.
gender war bullshit is bullshit.
lemmy is full of anti-men threads. there was a massive one a few days ago with 100s of comments. is that pro-woman?
I don’t know, personally I’m against anti-whatever nonsense. I’m not in any camp, but I will point out my gendered life experiences, because the often go against the popular grain of gender essentialism that many people are conceptual wedded to.
Isolationism. I completely reject the idea that my country’s (the US) military interventionism is in any way driven by benevolence, or makes life better either for Americans (outside of war profiteers) or for the people of the country we’re fucking with.
This is really controversial on here, for some reason. The fact that I want to leave other countries alone and focus on investing in schools and hospitals and public transit instead of bombs and tanks (I don’t even really care if it’s being spent domestically or abroad, so long as it’s being spent on good things instead of bad things) causes a bunch of people to call me a “tankie” and say that I’m just as bad as a fascist. All because I say shit like, that I don’t want to start shit with North Korea. I don’t even give a shit about North Korea. Like, I just watched how Afghanistan played out and went, “You know, we probably shouldn’t do shit like that again,” and supposedly left-leaning people really, really hate me for it. It’s genuinely bizarre. I even got attacked once for defending Biden pulling out of Afghanistan! People just love sticking our nose in other countries’ business, for reasons I can’t even begin to understand.
Probably being an absolutist instead of considering case-by-case leaves room for criticism.
In your example, Biden pulling out of Afghanistan. Was it wrong to intervene in the first place, probably? But pulling out at that point caused the deaths of western allies and handed victory to the Taliban, causing millions to suffer eg. women can’t get jobs and single-mother families starve to death… and it was entirely foreseeable.
I would argue that Humanitarian Intervention should be excluded, and certain UN-led actions (although the bureaucracy has certainly led to interventions occurring after mass deaths, unfortunately).
But pulling out at that point caused the deaths of western allies and handed victory to the Taliban, causing millions to suffer eg. women can’t get jobs and single-mother families starve to death… and it was entirely foreseeable.
That’s a completely ridiculous and absurd position. They did not “hand victory to the Taliban,” the Taliban won victory over 20 years of fighting and the withdrawal merely acknowledged that fact, a fact which Americans seem to have deluded themselves into thinking was anything but inevitable, and they really didn’t like their delusions being shattered. The embargo, not the withdrawal, is what’s caused most of the suffering. As the band Flobots said in 2007, “We already lost the wars they keep waging.” Somehow, in spite of over another decade of accomplishing absolutely nothing, people seem, if anything, more willing to keep fighting the pointless, hopeless battle.
What is the alternative to the withdrawal? Please, provide an answer to that question. Do you think if we stayed there another 20 years, then we could leave and our puppet regime wouldn’t instantly collapse? Or should we have just stayed there inevitably, even sending our grandchildren to go fight in that stupid pointless war?
The only thing that you said that’s correct is that on day 1 of the war, we should not have gone in. But on day 2, we also should’ve left. On day 3 we should have left. On day 300 we should’ve left. On day, what was it even, 7000? On day 7000, we absolutely, 10000% should’ve left. What possible reason could you use to justify delaying it further? What could we do in another 300 days that we couldn’t do in 7000? At that point, you’re just arguing for making it a permanent war of conquest.
Your problem, and the problem of everyone who thinks like you, is that you’re incapable of facing reality and accepting that sometimes good decisions are painful. When an alcoholic decides to go clean, what do you think that first day is like? Is it pleasant? Of course not. They may be irritable, they may have to have awkward conversations or confrontations with their drinking buddies, they may even lose friendships over it! But it’s still the right decision, the important thing is that they stopped. This is the same way. Yes, the immediate effects of pulling out may have been unpleasant, but you have to be very short-sighted to not recognize it as an obviously correct and necessary decision. Y’all just see the unpleasantness and say, “Everything’s been shitty since I decided to quit, I should just have another drink.”
Even the government we propped up told us to leave! How can you possibly justify continuing the occupation? And how can I possibly view you as anything but a warmongering imperialist for taking that stance? You’re talking about murdering people! Do you even realize that?
Yawn.
If a Taliban victory was inevitable, this is yeah totally true. The “rip off the bandaid” approach.
The question of how long it takes to peacefully handover power in a colony is an interesting one. It can be an absurd amount of time, may never be 100%, or it may never be peaceful, if resentment persists. I think it is possible, but we may differ there.
It’s certainly hard to justify the long-term cost to American life, expenditure, energy and focus to attempt beneficial cultural change on the other side of the world.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, some things are actually better in Afghanistan, since 2021. Definite evidence that war is in fact, worse, generally, than even a very dickish government. Looking at the data, I might come down on your side, it’s tough.
WHO Health data overview for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Oh, I absolutely support “attempting beneficial cultural change on the other side of the world.” Go write a book, sing a song, make a movie, you can still do that, right now, nothing’s stopping you!
What I oppose is drone striking weddings halfway across the globe, kicking in doors and screaming at people in a language they don’t speak, classifying every “military aged male” as an enemy combatant even if they’re just a bystander to falsify your casualty reports, abducting innocent people indefinitely to secret torture dungeons without charge or trial, and that sort of thing. You know, things like, “forced rectal feeding without medical necessity.”
Like, have you looked into what the war actually, physically looked like for people? “Attempting beneficial cultural change,” what the hell are you talking about? Even if it wasn’t an extreme whitewashing of the situation, you don’t impose “beneficial” cultural change as an occupying force, at gunpoint! The only thing we did was make them hate us more.
By the way, do you know how we finally got bin Laden? It was by using a fake vaccination campaign to collect blood samples in Pakistan. You wanna talk about humanitarianism, do you have any idea how many people could die, how many preventable diseases we could fail to eradicate, if people in developing countries mistrust vaccination drives because the CIA uses them as cover? But you know, at least our lust for revenge was satisfied. (Speaking of, the US also promoted anti-vax conspiracy theories in the Philippines, during COVID, to keep them from relying on Chinese vaccines.)
We Americans used to at least try not to look for “foreign monsters abroad”. I was raised on that sort of old fashioned idea. Do you ever feel like an impossible person from a land that never existed?
I remember growing up in the 90’s and it being fairly common to think that there were no real enemies out in the world, that all the conflicts were over. “The end of history,” gets mocked a lot, but the idea of putting conflict behind us and working together towards a common cause of advancing together is something I really miss.
But if that period of relative peace had continued, then people would’ve started asking questions about why we’re still dumping more money into our military than the next 9 countries combined when the USSR no longer exists (to quote Terminator 2, “They’re our friends now”) and China such a big trading partner that nobody would dream of rocking the boat. And if people started asking those questions, it’d be real bad news for the war profiteers who make bank off that spending. And so it all went out the window, starting with the “war on terror,” and now the government’s trying to make us see everybody as a threat.
And so we can’t have nice things, like healthcare, we all have to tighten our belts so that we can make more tanks. I remember when that was seen as right-wing.
It still is a right wing position, but the trouble is not right or left specifically, it’s that the empire is overextended with its military obligations, the dollar has been badly debased, the US pays more in debt than its GDP, and despite all our spending, the US couldn’t possibly meet all of its military obligations if more than one big thing happened at a time. The dollar is still the world reserve currency, but only because there’s not yet a credible replacement.
The sad fact is that instead of minding our business, America wanted to be an empire - and empires have a pretty standard lifecycle. I don’t think it’s a question of if, but when, it goes the way of Spain and GB.
Having children is borderline unethical given the capitalist hellscape they will be born into, the relatively high likelihood that they will not be able to live to old age due to risk of large parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable with climate change, and considering that reduced birth rates is the most ethical path to a lower population on the planet, which, though technically not a strict requirement of a greener future, certainly makes it a lot easier.
No shade for any kids living today or parents who choose to have them despite the above. I understand why people do it and I don’t blame anyone for it. But it is worth pointing out that current birth rates in most countries are not sustainable, and the seemingly constant fearmongering about falling birthrates in places where it’s low needs to go away. Yes, it’s bad for the economy if the new generation is smaller than their parents. That’s a problem with the system and its design (one of many), and not at all a rationale for having kids.
I will be honest, I held this same view for many years and still agree with it on the face of it but there were two things that people said to me that softened my view.
- We need good people to make more good people. (Apparently my friends think I’m a good person. Weird)
- There be dragons in our society but what good are dragons without dragon slayers?
Obviously these weren’t the only factors but they both really resonated with me. My first dragon slayers is due this month
The trick here I think is parenting in a way that passes along whatever good you may have to your child. Unfortunately (or fortunately, in some cases) the moral compass and general ethics of the parents don’t always translate to the kid. How to do that effectively is a whole other psychological debate. Either way, congrats and best of luck!
Mostly agree with you. I think the parents that agree with you should feel some regret though.
The trouble is, if all the considerate people who don’t want kids don’t have kids, the only people left will be the kids of the kids that did want kids.
