Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlGojNI6KTQ&index=20&list=WL

[TheodoricFriede]

I actually think Breath of the Wild Link is Bisexual.

[Alienmorph]

This is just another case of "Samus is a Trannie!!!" head-canon...

Is it possible? I guess... ? Is it necessary, or directly prooved by anything? Not really. Is it something ANYONE but some extreme left moron wanting to fill a "diversity quota" cares or should care about? Fuck no.

Nintendo is one of the few companies that still does videogames that are just fun, well made videogames. Let's keep it that way and not turn even those into some sort of political statement ffs.

[TheodoricFriede]

Nintendo has, in the past, absolutely included characters that would represent less represented groups.

They just dont scream about how amazing they are for doing it. It usually also isn't done clumsily.

That article is idiotic by the way. The writer clearly has no idea what was going on in that game. However i do disagree with the videos final point about how Link is not meant to be projected on. That is, in fact, exactly what Link was always intended to be. A projection of the player. That's why he never talks.

[Alienmorph]

Nintendo has, in the past, absolutely included characters that would represent less represented groups.

They just dont scream about how amazing they are for doing it. It usually also isn't done clumsily.

Exactly, which is how you should do it. It's the difference between having a colorful and varied cast of characters organically made part of your fictional world, and putting your story to a screeching halt to make sure you know that one NPC is a LGBT (or of any other minority) character and the developers are to be phraised for being oh so progressive to include that. You know... like Bioware did in the last years, for example. The first is a good way to go about it that makes your story and setting more interesting and believable, the second is just to stroke the ego of some leftard and the less we have of it in pop culture, the better.

[Raga]

Inasmuch as this just seems to be fanfiction, I don't really care. It's like all that multi-chapter Shepard/Nihlus porn. So you got all that out of some character who was onscreen for like 2 minutes and had maybe 1 minute of dialog the whole game? Eh, sure, whatever. So long as people don't get militant, I don't really care what they headcanon. Apparently, a lot of people headcanon gay/bi Shang from Mulan as well because apparently he was "obviously into her when he thought she was Ping." Whatever.

[Alienmorph]

Staying on a similar topic, recently the CW announced thei're gonna introduce the character of Batwoman in their DC tv shows continuity. Batwoman in the comics is an ex soldier and 100% lesbian. They hired Ruby Rose, the chick that recently appeared in The Meg, who's also a legit lesbian.

The leftards covered her in all sorts of insults until she got tired and turned off her social media account. Why? Because they claim she looks too normal to play an LGBT superhero.

I shit you not. SJWs tried to make an actress give up a part because in their books she wasn't enough lesbian to play a lesbian.

[TTTX]

Staying on a similar topic, recently the CW announced thei're gonna introduce the character of Batwoman in their DC tv shows continuity. Batwoman in the comics is an ex soldier and 100% lesbian. They hired Ruby Rose, the chick that recently appeared in The Meg, who's also a legit lesbian.

The leftards covered her in all sorts of insults until she got tired and turned off her social media account. Why? Because they claim she looks too normal to play an LGBT superhero.

I shit you not. SJWs tried to make an actress give up a part because in their books she wasn't enough lesbian to play a lesbian.

you can't please those kind of people, they are like spoiled children it is never enough.

[Alienmorph]

Btw, the chick in question basically looks like Jack, except with some more hairs, so it makes even less sense that she's "not lesbian enough":

[Raga]

I don't know why any semi-famous person ever voluntarily gets on Twitter. Seriously, if you ever tweet about anything except what you had for supper, sooner or later you will say something that rubs somebody the wrong way and cue the digital lynch mob. (And the dinner updates better be nothing but hamburgers or you will get accused of cultural appropriation).

Facebook is it's own brand of hell, but Twitter just seems tailor made for this kind of nonsense. I never hear about brouhaha like this on most other platforms.

[DarkStorm]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2wnfOKKl-Y&t=

Mortally challenged.

[Alienmorph]

Har har. Oh those poor salty assholes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXkF2viFDgU

(Yes, went for Mister Jay so it ties in with the Batwoman thing too xD)

[Alienmorph]

"It's a tragedy that that bridge collapsed and lots of people died. But on the bright side, today we bounced back another ship full of migrants, proving our government GETS RESULTS!"

Basically what the co-president of the italian parliament had to say about what happened in Genova.

The asshole literally can't stop bashing immigrants and poor people even when it has nothing to do with anything. And unlike with Trump and the US, most of my country it's on HIS side.

Yeah...

[Sinekein]

I offer my commiserations, having to suffer being represented by Salvini must truly suck.

The leftards covered her in all sorts of insults until she got tired and turned off her social media account. Why? Because they claim she looks too normal to play an LGBT superhero.

I was curious when I read that and investigated what happened - having been pretty disconnected from online drama whatsoever.

I have not found any instance of her being deemed "too normal" by anyone.

However, there were a number of gatekeepers who accused her of either "not being gay enough" - because she came out as bisexual, not as a lesbian - or accused her of "not being militant enough" to play such a prominent LGBT role (the most prominent one in comics as far as I know). Both utterly stupid points, but pretty standard gatekeeping as far as I'm aware - just particularly intense harassment-wise in that case.

Then there were complaints that she "was not Jewish", and was going to play a Jewish character. Now this issue is not as clear-cut as the one above in my mind, I fully support having characters being played by actors who share their origins in order to promote diversity, however, I think that the Jewish community might be the one that is in the "right place" at the moment, in that actors and actresses are not discriminated against or underrepresented in the film & movie industry (and often play non-Jewish roles), and that it is quite often portrayed in fiction. So while I would have agreed if the issue was about a minority that suffers from underrepresentation - a latin or a muslim character - I am not sure it is that big a deal here.

She was accused of outing Demi Lovato against her will in 2013 which is kind of a dick move, so those criticisms I can agree with - but not huge enough to disqualify her.

Finally, some wanted a lesser known LGBT actress to be picked so that she could profit from the popularity boost and enlarge the community of non-straight actors and actresses, which is kind of a chicken and egg issue.

Overall, it looks like the drama is huge because it's not any LGBT character, it's Batwoman. I'd say it is (sadly) the standard backlash against truly significant characters people are really invested in.

[TheodoricFriede]

Then there were complaints that she "was not Jewish", and was going to play a Jewish character. .

I am a practicing jew and i dont give two shits about having the actor playing the roll of a Jewish person being Jewish.

[Alienmorph]

I offer my commiserations, having to suffer being represented by Salvini must truly suck.

...

I was curious when I read that and investigated what happened - having been pretty disconnected from online drama whatsoever.

I have not found any instance of her being deemed "too normal" by anyone.

...

And it's not even just Salvini. Since our electoral laws are a fucking joke, his party had to ally with another party of snake oil sellers just as dumb and useless to make a (supposedly) functional government. But people like them anyway because "Communists just wanted to help the immigrants and the people with the gaaaay! We have to stop them!". And I WISH that was a joke.

As for the Batwoman thing, maybe I've misread the "too normal" part, but as you pointed out, there were still plenty of (bullshit) reasons they didn't like the actress chosen to play the character. Take your pick, it's insultingly stupid either way.

Also, welcome back. I was gonna greet you in the main thread, but since we're here...

[Sinekein]

Thanks!

Yeah I read about the Italian elections. My desk neighbor during the PhD's last year was Italian, and being from Rome I think she experienced firsthand what M5S was like (Mayor is from that party I think?) - and she was livid when she was talking about them. It's a bit saddening to see populists like that being successful in Europe again. At least the US have the excuse of never having outright tried it before.

As for Kate Kane, It's probably the aggregation of not being gay, Jewish and (I assume) red-haired enough, which is easy to boil down to "too normal". It's especially ironic because "normal" is definitely not how I would describe the one prominent actress who said that she was genderfluid.

But I don't think Twitter is an active representation of anything nowadays. When your most prominent user worldwide is also the world's most famous troll, it's no surprise the average user is not exactly sane.

@Theo: well you're more qualified than I am to judge in that case. I've pretty much seen the whole spectrum of opinions regarding representation, from "they can use blackface for all I care" to "they picked Hondurian to play a Guatemalan, it's ruined forever" and I gave up forming a definitive opinion on the matter.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pkvBpVrGXc&index=15&list=WL

[Alienmorph]

Yes, the current Mayor of Rome is M5S. She's so incompetent that she couldn't even find a good looking Christmas tree last holiday seasons, and when in the streets of the city several small but dangerous sinkholes started to appear and swallow cars, she blamed climate change for making the streets pavement too brittle, instead of poor maintenance. Rome sees snow once every 20 years, and it's warm and dry most of the time anyway. It's not like when in Norway things get fucked because global warming melts the permafrost ffs.

[Raga]

The whole "blame every natural disaster on global warming" thing has started to get on my nerves in general. Don't get me wrong. Global warming is objectively happening. Bad weather will undoubtedly be part of that. Even so, it's completely impossible to determine if any particular disaster is singularly bad because of global warming.

Like Harvey here last year. It was really bad. Global warming might have contributed. Or is could just be that the Gulf Coast has periodic horrible hurricanes, literally going back as far as records and as far as science can determine. Maybe the takeaway is that Houston and New Orleans and Miami just need to prepare better for hurricanes, global warming or not.

[Sinekein]

Global warming does not cause any specific natural disaster. It just makes all hydro- and atmosphere related ones occur much, much more frequently.

When the POTUS considers that you can avoid forest fires by cutting trees, or says that you can save lives by lowering anti-pollution car norms, then reminding people of how damaging Global Warming is not so much stating the obvious as it is an important reminder. Even if, sadly, there have been so many natural disasters recently that it makes the whole "GW is bad" sound like a broken record.

[Alienmorph]

The whole "blame every natural disaster on global warming" thing has started to get on my nerves in general. Don't get me wrong. Global warming is objectively happening. Bad weather will undoubtedly be part of that. Even so, it's completely impossible to determine if any particular disaster is singularly bad because of global warming.

Exactly. Lots of people are using a real problem to justify their incompetence.

I've been to Rome last time in 2009. I don't particularly like the capital... it's kind of a shithole, monuments and tourist hot spots not standing. I'm sorry to say that, but it is. I was there for a week, somebody burned a scooter in a public parking lot, and the burned carcass was still there the day I left. Half of the area where common peopel live is old as dirty as fuck. The streets are full of potholes. Public tranportation in inefficent and overpriced. There's vandalism traces all over the place.

And that was way BEFORE the actual Mayor took over. Things got WORSE since then. And she especially did a shit job with the maintenance of roardways and walkays. But when the streets start to open, or the sewers get filled by the first big rain of teh season, oh it's not that she did a bad work, it's global warming causing new situations that need different approaches to be handled.

[Mazder]

On the whole Alex Jones thing and the far left basically doing it's deplatforming game, along with free speech maybe not being a thing on sites like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc.

And yeah it's from Lord Dankula. And no it's not in support of Alex Jones or the things he says, but it is in support of his right to say them.
Those with a "HURR I'LL NEVER LISTED TO THEM BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE THEM!!!" ideology please drop that and just listen to the words said and the examples given and wait until the end of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGEsN1v9cZA&t=817s

All in all the basic message is stop the deplatforming game as once a truly far-right tyrannical government comes in they'll use the same laws for "protection and decency" against you.

[Sinekein]

Alex Jones got removed from various social medias not because of a political agenda, but because he violated the rules set on what can and cannot appear on these platforms.

In the most recent case, because he called for his supporters to prepare their (real) weapons to fight liberals, which is very much an incitation towards committing violence. If Contrapoints or any other "far-left" youtuber starts telling their viewers to rise up and murder Republicans in their vicinity, the exact same thing will happen.

If you give that a pass, then you have no reason to remove ISIS videos where fundamentalist nutjobs ask young muslims all over the world to take whatever weapon they have and kill as many infidels as possible. Because those also fall under "freedom of speech" if you take it to the extreme.

And if those guys consider that calling for murders should not be forbidden, maybe they failed a very basic human decency check.

[Mazder]

Alex Jones got removed from various social medias not because of a political agenda, but because he violated the rules set on what can and cannot appear on these platforms.

In the most recent case, because he called for his supporters to prepare their (real) weapons to fight liberals, which is very much an incitation towards committing violence. If Contrapoints or any other "far-left" youtuber starts telling their viewers to rise up and murder Republicans in their vicinity, the exact same thing will happen.

If you give that a pass, then you have no reason to remove ISIS videos where fundamentalist nutjobs ask young muslims all over the world to take whatever weapon they have and kill as many infidels as possible. Because those also fall under "freedom of speech" if you take it to the extreme.

And if those guys consider that calling for murders should not be forbidden, maybe they failed a very basic human decency check.

Yeah except the very thing he was supposedly removed for on those platforms are still happening by many, many users.
I mean you have literally thousands of users with "kill all whites" and support for Antifa to literally kill their opposition, yet they stay in place.

And to be fair Alex Jones when calling for people to take up arms against liberals that's 100% allowed in his country. That's supported by the 1st and 2nd ammendments. Is it a bad way to go about it, sure, but he's still got the right to say them.
I have seen many accounts on twitter wanting to do the exact same thing, too many to count.

The main problem is that what does/doesn't determine as not safe content is, yeah, down to the site/owners. But those owners then turn around and say they're in support of freedom of speech. If they're censoring anything, and I do mean anything, then they're not outright for freedom of speech.
In the video the allegory is made that social media is the new version of the town square and deplatforming in examples like this are 100% just turning people away from a public area.
Especially when these companies are held in the USA and are semi-beholden to US laws.

The only way to stop the things we want to AND keep freedom of speech is to directly combat it. Yeah it's difficult and yeah it's annoying and tiring but that's the cost of 100% freedom.

And, well, yeah those calling for murders aren't the best examples for violations of freedom of speech, but dankula gave a decent example of how and where things can lead if you're not careful in any respect. Yeah, for now the "t+c's" clause will work for one or two deplatformings but eventually the "site for everyone to interact" will become an echocamber due to things seen as indecent and wrong being removed to such an extant where a nutjob that is mostly watched for the foll he's acting like and not taken seriously is removed for being taken seriously.

[Alienmorph]

Alex Jones is a fucking idiot that got much much more popular and successfull than he would ever have deserved.

That said.

If we're taking idiots and extremists off of online media platforms, that means that everyone who ever argued all people of a certain race or demographic are evil and dangerous and should be treated like sub-human monsters, needs to go. Which would mean a crapton of people both on the right AND on the left. And lead to a massive witchunt while we decide what's too offensive to be said online and what's not.

So sadly I have to say that leaving Jones be would have been the far lesser evil. This could set a precedent that would end up opening a really, really nasty Pandora's Box. At least for all of those who give a damn about freedom of speech and don't live in a fantasy world where the only opinon that matters is the one of people agreeing with them.

Let's hope it's not the case. Maybe it's just that Jones has pissed off one person too many, and got some payback for all the crap he said. Maybe tomorrow there will be someone else being basically banned from the Internet for less egregious reasons, and things will go downhill from there.

Either way, it's something to keep an eye one and be very wary about. At least in my opinion.

[Sinekein]

Yeah except the very thing he was supposedly removed for on those platforms are still happening by many, many users.
I mean you have literally thousands of users with "kill all whites" and support for Antifa to literally kill their opposition, yet they stay in place.

I just typed "Kill All Whites" in Youtube, and the results were either a song (I don't know if it is indeed a racist song, or a song mocking anti-white movements, and I certainly won't listen to discover the truth - in any event, not a political statement), or Trump supporters (one of the channels is even named "Red Pill" something) reacting to videos of people asking to "Kill All Whites"...but the original videos are nowhere to be seen because, I assume, YT removed them as per their rules.

And to be fair Alex Jones when calling for people to take up arms against liberals that's 100% allowed in his country. That's supported by the 1st and 2nd ammendments. Is it a bad way to go about it, sure, but he's still got the right to say them.
I have seen many accounts on twitter wanting to do the exact same thing, too many to count.

Yeah but if Alex Jones can ask its supporters to take up arms against liberals, then Imam Whatever can ask its supporters to take up arms against infidels, following the very same amendments (and I think freedom of religion is also somewhere within the American constitution). Honestly, I'd rather have neither than both.

The main problem is that what does/doesn't determine as not safe content is, yeah, down to the site/owners. But those owners then turn around and say they're in support of freedom of speech. If they're censoring anything, and I do mean anything, then they're not outright for freedom of speech.

Then it means you think videos that promote paedophilia, mass murder of Jews, necrophilia, incest, or all of them combined, should be legal.

Freedom of speech is not freedom of encouraging criminal activities. Because encouraging a criminal activity, in most countries I know, is illegal.

In the video the allegory is made that social media is the new version of the town square and deplatforming in examples like this are 100% just turning people away from a public area.
Especially when these companies are held in the USA and are semi-beholden to US laws.

The only way to stop the things we want to AND keep freedom of speech is to directly combat it. Yeah it's difficult and yeah it's annoying and tiring but that's the cost of 100% freedom.

And, well, yeah those calling for murders aren't the best examples for violations of freedom of speech, but dankula gave a decent example of how and where things can lead if you're not careful in any respect. Yeah, for now the "t+c's" clause will work for one or two deplatformings but eventually the "site for everyone to interact" will become an echocamber due to things seen as indecent and wrong being removed to such an extant where a nutjob that is mostly watched for the foll he's acting like and not taken seriously is removed for being taken seriously.

Internet is already an echo chamber. It is absolutely not a tool that facilitates communication between people who disagree. Being hidden behind a screen does not exactly encourage decency, ponderation and self-reflection. You have many people of opposing ideologies on reddit, but they don't talk to each other, they are either on far-left subreddits, or on The_Donald and the like - but if they interact, it's to insult each other, not to have a friendly debate that might change either one's political opinions.

And those echo chambers were not created by lack of freedom of speech. They were created because people (me included) tend to amp up their dickishness when they are behind a screen as opposed to interacting with real people, which means that differences of opinion that might be manageable in real life quickly became insufferable - so dens of far-left or far-right activism progressively appeared, mostly by the exclusion of those who didn't share those ideologies, and not because of a lack of freedom on what can and can't be said.

Total freedom of speech will not improve anything, it will only give platforms to people with even more repulsive ideologies than already exist. If I had anything to say, I'd cut down with the freedom already so that flat-earthers, creationnists or antivaxxers (especially antivaxxers) can stop having their BS promoted, since in that last case their BS literally causes deaths. But since the freedom of speech is quite important already, then the same bogus study that has been disproven 100 times is still used as "proof" that vaccines cause autism, and such videos are shared daily and legally on social platforms.

If we're taking idiots and extremists off of online media platforms, that means that everyone who ever argued all people of a certain race or demographic are evil and dangerous and should be treated like sub-human monsters, needs to go. Which would mean a crapton of people both on the right AND on the left. And lead to a massive witchunt while we decide what's too offensive to be said online and what's not.

In that case I think this idiot forgot about the basic "don't promote murder" rule, ie "don't encourage people to commit criminal offenses". He was never deplatformed for spouting conspirationnist nonsense about pizzagate or gay frogs because, stupid as it is, it was not an outright call for murder.

[Mazder]

I just typed "Kill All Whites" in Youtube, and the results were either a song (I don't know if it is indeed a racist song, or a song mocking anti-white movements, and I certainly won't listen to discover the truth - in any event, not a political statement), or Trump supporters (one of the channels is even named "Red Pill" something) reacting to videos of people asking to "Kill All Whites"...but the original videos are nowhere to be seen because, I assume, YT removed them as per their rules.

Well, yeah, YT is better with policing it.
Mind you videos are seldom called outright such by both sides.
The "kill all whites" example was more aimed at twitter.

Yeah but if Alex Jones can ask its supporters to take up arms against liberals, then Imam Whatever can ask its supporters to take up arms against infidels, following the very same amendments (and I think freedom of religion is also somewhere within the American constitution). Honestly, I'd rather have neither than both.

Technically they can. And if twitter or such wish to remove it they can, they just need to drop the concept of them being inclusive for all and a company that supports free speech.
Even getting rid of objectively bad stuff is against free speech.

I would rather have neither too. Which is why I'd rather Twitter and places at least be honest if they follow aparticular train of thought that is supported by their rules.

Then it means you think videos that promote paedophilia, mass murder of Jews, necrophilia, incest, or all of them combined, should be legal.

Freedom of speech is not freedom of encouraging criminal activities. Because encouraging a criminal activity, in most countries I know, is illegal.

Legal, no.
But if they are made illegal then they should at least make them clear as to what is exactly against the rules and not have the rules be vague.
Dankula made the point in the video that rules/laws are made in a vague way to get what they wish to be permissible/the norm. If it is made that it's the norm to place things that offend into the same category as such things that are a hardline no, such as paedophilia , necrophilia, pornography, etc, then it gets to the point where certain opinions become a hardline no as well due to not being popular, even if they are valid (not saying Alex Jones's opinions are valid), and get removed. Such a rule can also work against those that want it in place as those with large enough audiences, no matter the content, can just play the mass-flagging game and get them deplatformed instead of addressing the argument/disgusting thing and getting rid of it by challenge of ideas.

Technically it's not but I've seen a fair few clips of both sides of the political compass in America calling for deaths and fights out in the open yet they're all getting away with it. What is the rule and what's actually done are two different things.

Internet is already an echo chamber. It is absolutely not a tool that facilitates communication between people who disagree. Being hidden behind a screen does not exactly encourage decency, ponderation and self-reflection. You have many people of opposing ideologies on reddit, but they don't talk to each other, they are either on far-left subreddits, or on The_Donald and the like - but if they interact, it's to insult each other, not to have a friendly debate that might change either one's political opinions.

And those echo chambers were not created by lack of freedom of speech. They were created because people (me included) tend to amp up their dickishness when they are behind a screen as opposed to interacting with real people, which means that differences of opinion that might be manageable in real life quickly became insufferable - so dens of far-left or far-right activism progressively appeared, mostly by the exclusion of those who didn't share those ideologies, and not because of a lack of freedom on what can and can't be said.

Total freedom of speech will not improve anything, it will only give platforms to people with even more repulsive ideologies than already exist. If I had anything to say, I'd cut down with the freedom already so that flat-earthers, creationnists or antivaxxers (especially antivaxxers) can stop having their BS promoted, since in that last case their BS literally causes deaths. But since the freedom of speech is quite important already, then the same bogus study that has been disproven 100 times is still used as "proof" that vaccines cause autism, and such videos are shared daily and legally on social platforms.

While I agree on the internet as a whole being an echo chamber I also feel that the few places where there is mass communication, like Twitter, where they purport to be followers of Free Speech need to make clear what is and is not allowed if they wish to still play the game of "some things not allowed".

The main problem is once you're already willing to sacrifice the freedom to get rid of the vocal nutjobs, the sneaky ones who are keeping quiet and who are paying attention to what's going on and are massing will then soon find themselves in power and will take those freedoms away. I mean I guess you have to consider what is worse, living with a bunch more stupid people with stupid and slightly dangerous views with more of a chance to be laughed down, or, living in a country that has entire tracts of the internet straight up banned or throttled due to some laws which were put in place monitoring the sites for "unsafe content".

I always say that I'd rather have a Nazi I could see and hear than one I could not.
The more places are open the more easily identifiable the crazies and bigots are and while they might find an audience they will also find far more enemies and would have nowhere to scurry away to.
But that is a more idealistic way of viewing it and I accept that it might not work on it's own.

[Sinekein]

My opinion on Twitter is too low for me to have any semblant of objectivity on what it means or what it stands for.

It is tailor-made to make one-liners, no matter how wrong they are, sound like they are better than actual, developed argumentations. It encourages short attention spans and immediate, emotional reactions, instead of emphasizing focus and reflexion.

You can't have a constructive dialogue on Twitter, but you can definitely throw insults at everyone. It's like internet but without what can make it good.

So their concept of being inclusive or not - I honestly don't care, I think the whole platform is wrong and toxic to begin with. There is absolutely nothing that is made better by being on Twitter. And I don't think anyone actually improves by being on Twitter.

Except for the Ryan Reynolds/Blake Lively birthday jokes, those were awesome (but would work on Instagram or Facebook).

All in all, I just think "free speech" is often purposefully misused by various extremists, and that its actual meaning includes "while respecting the law".

We have a similar issue in French, with a famous late comedian being often quoted as a staunch defender of the freedom of speech by extremists, since one of his best and most famous routines was centered about the question "Can we laugh about everything?" to which he answers "Yes" - so extremists use it as proof that racist or antisemitic jokes are alright because they are "laughing about everything".

Except the entirety of the routine is about the fact that "you can laugh about everything, but you cannot laugh with everyone", and spends a lot of time showing that, no, racist jokes told by racists are not funny. Bonus point since the whole routine was written to ridicule famous far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen (who was in the audience).

So, basically - another example of a misuse of "freedom of speech", as Desproges - the comedian - clearly included a matter of basic human decency as a condition for laughing, which is always ignored by the various extremists who misquote him.

[Raga]

I mostly don't have it in me to get upset that assorted asshats get banned from this website or that or that some publisher deigns not to publish rubbish or some webhosting company doesn't want the Daily Stormer on its servers. This is all just various publication/distribution outfits exercising control over what content appears on their platforms, which is fair enough.

What's far more alarming to me is when a voice is completely silenced not for rubbish it's trying to put forward here and now, but for something it said in some other place or time that has nothing to do with the point at hand. So something like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/busi ... antic.html

This is not just banning violent or rubbish ideas or banning people after they have misused your platform and violated the rules. This is blacklisting a person in general, regardless of what *good* ideas they might have because they said some rubbish in some time or place.

And there is absolutely a double standard for this type of silencing that favors leftist with verbal diarrhea but not rightists with verbal diarrhea. Compare this guy to Jeong now working at the Times.

Addendum. The specific issue here is that the Times and the Atlantic are ostensibly centrist. They present themselves as *not* being ideological unlike say National Review or Mother Jones which are unapologetically partisan. The tacit message here is that people with rubbish opinions from the right of the aisle are not acceptable at centrist publications, but people with rubbish ideas from the left of the aisle are welcome. In other words "mainstream = leftist" which is of course horseshit.

Another comparable example might be various people who have had sympathetic dealings with Louis Farrakhan to no particular detriment to their careers while James Gunn gets fired for some stupid jokes he made 10 years ago.

[Sinekein]

There is this NYT column that defends Jeong's hiring while criticizing Williamson being fired. I do not entirely agree with it, but I think it is a good read. And it is true that there is an outrage bias on the left and a tendency to justify what should not be justifiable.

However, and as some of the selected comments from the linked article mention, I do not place on the same level Jeong and Williamson's shitty tweets and/or opinions. Because while both of them suck, one has more real consequences on the world. Not that anti-white racism coming from Asian people in the US is unimportant, but I don't think there are that many white people in America whose lives suffer daily from racism coming from Asians.

I know it sounds hypocritical, because I wouldn't say the same of anti-black racism coming from white people in America - because in my mind, like abortion and those who are fighting it, those have daily dramatic real-life consequences. But I just can't ignore the balance of power when it comes to intolerance. Intolerance or hate coming from a minority/from the powerless and directed at a majority/the powerful is different from hate coming from a majority/the powerful and directed at a minority/the powerless.

Now honestly, I'd rather have neither of those two getting columns, than both of them. I am sure you can find equally talented writers as Sarah Jeong, possibly like-minded, but who don't share their inner thoughts on Twitter.

Also, once again, it was fucking Twitter.

[Raga]

See, I'd rather they are both allowed work for mainstream, venerable outfits because we drastically *need* such outfits that present a breadth of ideas. As is, this kind of thing is fast-tracking us to nothing but ideological rags on the extremities and a milquetoast middle unable to put forward any big ideas for fear they might tread on someone's toes.

And as for the whole power dynamics in racism thing, I'm perfectly willing to accept the plausibility of that when it comes to actual policy or when such sentiments are vocalized by somebody in a position of power over people's lives (say a cop or a school administrator). However, the idea that *anybody* is actually wounded in any way whatever because some asshats said something on Twitter is extremely dubious. I find any kind of attempts at some "hierarchy of grievance" based on Twitter postings to be inane.

(The only exception to this I can think of is if some outfit like ISIS is actually using Twitter for logistics of information and organization).

[Raga]

An addition: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ht/567598/

Much as I think there is an overall slant in all this that favors the left, people on the right are none two shy about using these tactics as well. I think it was actually some far-right people who dug up the James Gunn tweets.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

An addition: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ht/567598/

Much as I think there is an overall slant in all this that favors the left, people on the right are none two shy about using these tactics as well. I think it was actually some far-right people who dug up the James Gunn tweets.

That's entirely possible. When one side starts using a weapon the other will likely follow suit. It's especially nasty in cases like this because the people who originally used the weapon are then faced with someone using their own underhanded tactics against them. They can't really complain because if they do they lose all credibility. But if they do nothing they take a loss.

[Sinekein]

I don't think it is possible to find if a side was the first to look into a public figure's digital past to try and discredit it. The method is ubiquitous and has existed since said public figures were too slow to realize the consequences of living in an era where what they say or write does not disappear or fade.

We got a number of politicians in France from the main left or right (pre-2017 at least) parties who started their careers on the extremes, whether it was by being Trotskist-sympathizers, or being part of far-right fascist groups. This would be entirely impossible for new figures nowadays, their reputations would get destroyed come the first election.

See, I'd rather they are both allowed work for mainstream, venerable outfits because we drastically *need* such outfits that present a breadth of ideas. As is, this kind of thing is fast-tracking us to nothing but ideological rags on the extremities and a milquetoast middle unable to put forward any big ideas for fear they might tread on someone's toes.

I disagree with the uselessness of "centrist" ideas at large. For all the talks of them being silenced, the extremes are very much vocal and heard nowadays, and this had the consequence of having people believe only the kind of revolutionary changes that they support can lead to a significant outcome. Which is simply untrue, many countries have thrived on an alternance of moderate governments. But now, both on the left and the right, any kind of moderate proposition is met with more outcry from the extremists on its own side, than by the other side. It was especially visible during the 2016 US elections. I don't think GOP supporters even bothered criticizing Clinton's policies (they'd rather go on and on about "but teh emails"), because the Sanderistas were doing that already. "You're not going far enough" is just about the best method to never be satisfied by anything, even if it goes in the direction you are hoping for.

Honestly, ideas such as "I hate white people" and "women who get an abortion should get the death penalty" needn't exist. Or at least, not in respectable media outlets which have mostly existed to deliver information, not opinions. I'm not a huge fan of opinion pieces in big newspapers as a whole, I think people should be able to read information reports and make their own opinion on what is going on, without having someone go and explain everything with a twist.

And as for the whole power dynamics in racism thing, I'm perfectly willing to accept the plausibility of that when it comes to actual policy or when such sentiments are vocalized by somebody in a position of power over people's lives (say a cop or a school administrator). However, the idea that *anybody* is actually wounded in any way whatever because some asshats said something on Twitter is extremely dubious. I find any kind of attempts at some "hierarchy of grievance" based on Twitter postings to be inane.

I don't have an answer on that. Almost everything can be seen as hurtful, so whether the hurt it dishes is tolerable or not is in the eye of the beholder. The threshold should not be too low, because people should be able to express themselves, but tolerating all hate speeches is not going to lead to any global improvement whatsoever, it's just gonna make it "the new normal". The last few years have not exactly seen an increase in censorship, instead extreme ideas have steadily been on the rise - but their proponents just love to scream that censorship silences them, because it makes them victims instead of the abusers they often are.

As I said, in the Jeong/Williamson case, I have a little less contempt for Jeong, but I do think their cases are not different enough to warrant different treatments.

[Sinekein]

About the Genoa bridge collapse:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/15/genoa-bridge-collapse-death-toll-italy-minister-calls-resignations

In a scathing attack, Danilo Toninelli, the transport minister from the Five Star Movement (M5S) party, called for top managers at Autostrade to resign and launched an attempt to revoke the company’s contract and impose a €150m (£134m) fine.

https://nypost.com/2018/08/15/italian-party-called-bridge-repairs-waste-of-money-years-before-collapse/

A now-deleted post on the Five Star Movement party’s website from 2013 argued against an ambitious construction and infrastructure project on Genoa’s highways — including the Morandi Bridge — blasting the plan as “a waste of money” and saying it would cause too many traffic disruptions, [url-https://www.thelocal.it/20180815/five-star-movement-founder-reportedly-mocked-warnings-of-collapse-of-morandi-bridge]the Local Italy reported.[/url]

“We’ve been told about the little fairy tale of the imminent collapse of the Morandi Bridge,” party co-founder Beppe Grillo wrote in the post.

But after the bridge crumbled on Tuesday, Five Star, which is governing alongside the League Party, vowed to fine highway agency Autostrade close to $170 million — for not carrying out proper repair work.

A rather nice illustration of how populism works, I think, since it is more often than not keen on "cutting taxes" by "cutting public spending". Well, that was a rather obvious consequence of what happens when you do that.

[Raga]

A lot of populism is big on infrastructure though. Trump has been pro-infrastructure, at least in rhetoric. He's just unable to deliver on anything there. And historically using massive projects to put people to work has been a huge part of populism especially leftist populists (reminded of the "dictator of Louisiana" Huey P. Long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long and his building of bridges over the Mississippi).

The cutting public spending thing for rightist populists is usually targeted at the welfare state specifically, and its increased when there's a perception that racial minorities or immigrants are receiving outsize portions of said welfare spending.

Also, I think there might have been a misunderstanding about the "uselessness of centrist ideas." I wasn't arguing they are useless, but the opposite. But they *become* useless if they are shouted into silence by extremists bent on ideological purity from the moderate wings of their own parties. But it goes farther than that. They aren't just trying to purge heretics from their own ranks. They are trying to redefine what "centrist" means.

Take the immigration debate here as an example. A very short, few years ago, it was perfectly normal for a moderate Democrat *or* a moderate Republican to hold an opinion something like "Immigrants are important to the country and we are a nation built on immigration. That being said, we also have the right to secure our borders, deport people who are here illegally, set skill-based and numerical standards for who we let in, and encourage immigrants to assimilate."

There is now a concerted effort to eliminate this as a viable opinion from any platform that isn't explicitly right leaning. To talk about deporting people who aren't hardened criminals is presented as unconscionable. To expect assimilation or to set entry standards based on skill rather than "family reunification" is presented as racist. This is not fringe elements out on the side (such as those calling for the abolition of ICE who are for the moment at least fringe). This is people trying to gain control of centrist platforms. This is what the talking heads want. Never mind that if you poll Average Joe, his opinion is still basically the moderate stance I outlined above.

The right is actually much more fractured on this point than the left is, Trump's base aside. I would argue there are actually way more immigration moderates remaining on the right than on the left at the moment. There are plenty who basically hold Obama's opinion as of 2010 or so when he was "Deporter in Chief." But in 8 years, that idea has somehow come to be presented as unquestionably right of the aisle.

[Sinekein]

A lot of populism is big on infrastructure though. Trump has been pro-infrastructure, at least in rhetoric. He's just unable to deliver on anything there. And historically using massive projects to put people to work has been a huge part of populism especially leftist populists (reminded of the "dictator of Louisiana" Huey P. Long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long and his building of bridges over the Mississippi).

The cutting public spending thing for rightist populists is usually targeted at the welfare state specifically, and its increased when there's a perception that racial minorities or immigrants are receiving outsize portions of said welfare spending.

From the little I read about it (admittedly Italian politics are not a favorite topic of mine), M5S is anti-taxes, period. I think they are closer to libertarians than anything else. They are not "left-wing" or "right-wing" populists in the usual sense, but they definitely use populist rhetoric to promote their ideas. And apparently back down and try to hide it when their ideas are exposed as utterly shitty.

Take the immigration debate here as an example. A very short, few years ago, it was perfectly normal for a moderate Democrat *or* a moderate Republican to hold an opinion something like "Immigrants are important to the country and we are a nation built on immigration. That being said, we also have the right to secure our borders, deport people who are here illegally, set skill-based and numerical standards for who we let in, and encourage immigrants to assimilate."

I know what you mean, everyone is being forced to take either a fully cynical or fully idealist stance on the issue, where the reality of the matter is very likely to be somewhere inbetween. All the Interior ministers we have had in the last 15 years have been depicted to varying degrees as right-wing anti-immigration individuals (with the possible exception of Bernard Cazeneuve - who was in charge during the Terror Attacks of 2015-2016) because they are the ones in charge of organizing deportations of people who were there illegally and could not pretend to get the refugee status.

The evolution is understandable in France at least, since in the last decade(s?) there has been an increase in memory issues regarding colonization and its consequences. Which means that the common left-wing opinion has become "France stirred shit in Africa, now it has to own what happened and deal with the people who suffer from the consequences", while the right-wing is more "at least there was order back when France was in charge there, they wanted independence now they should deal with it without sending us those they don't want". However, our last elections showed that moderation can still be rather popular, since Macron's entire schtick, aside from being young, was being "neither left nor right and clearly not as crazy as the others".

In the US, it seemed to be much more avoidable though, I don't think there is a true historical reason for the immigration issue to become so divisive. It can mostly be tracked down to the rise of political movements on both the left and the right whose weight has made harder and harder to ignore, and which have pushed constantly more extremist agendas.

Although the way American society evolves, with the rise of multicultural cities while the white countryside becomes less and less relevant, and the following resentment, has probably something to do with how "the other" is perceived.

[Raga]

In the US, it seemed to be much more avoidable though, I don't think there is a true historical reason for the immigration issue to become so divisive. It can mostly be tracked down to the rise of political movements on both the left and the right whose weight has made harder and harder to ignore, and which have pushed constantly more extremist agendas.

Although the way American society evolves, with the rise of multicultural cities while the white countryside becomes less and less relevant, and the following resentment, has probably something to do with how "the other" is perceived.

IMO it's completely cynical on the part of party high-ups at least. They assume immigrants will vote Democrat. Both Republicans and Democrats assume this and respond accordingly. Neither are really actually thinking about what's good for their base, about making deals, or the longevity of the country's health. They just want to win elections. Never-mind how inane it is to assume that immigrants will all vote Democrat forever in the first place.

Though I will add that there are *some* non-crazy economists who argue that immigration is having an overall negative impact on American workers and some non-crazy sociologists who argue that they are having a negative impact on social cohesion. But this information is heaped in controversy. It has basically acquired the same status of research about what basis behavioral sexual dimorphism has in genetics or biology if any. Any and every iota of research done is so picked and scraped by various political groups out to score "science" points on their side, that's it's become impossible to analyze the issue with anything approaching impartiality.

[Sinekein]

In all likelihood, it has negative consequences in some places and positive in others. On one side poor, young migrants are easy pickings for criminal groups of various kinds, but on the other there are many, many jobs requiring zero qualification that no one but poor migrants will agree to do and that are essential in society. But to calculate an overall balance (globally positive or negative) is virtually impossible because it will have a huge standard deviation depending on the localization.

I also assume some American workers do suffer from immigration - but if I were being a wee bit cynical I'd say that, if the employers did not have those cheap workers to employ instead of more expensive American ones, they would likely end up moving the company in a foreign, cheap country, where their margins are superior. And I highly doubt tariffs will be enough to stop capitalists to find a way to make more money, or to protect American workers (especially when you are not the only one with a decision power on tariffs worldwide).

IMO it's completely cynical on the part of party high-ups at least. They assume immigrants will vote Democrat.

I always read that hispanic communities in particular - which easily represent the largest part of the current migrants in the US - leaned towards Republicans, unlike African-American ones.

It is also a weird bet to make for the GOP: those migrant populations have a faster growth than the US white population, so the more you alienate them altogether, the harder it is going to become to win elections over time. They might be counting on a kickback effect where second or third generation immgrants who succeed in their lives become much more conservative, but there might be a limit to the number of insults they can forget.

[Raga]

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/20/64026246 ... t-benefits

More of what I was saying the other day. Relevant bit: "More than half of all immigrant households use at least one benefit program, according to the Department of Homeland Security."

Which is of course vehemently and consistently denied by progressives who insist on counting these stats at the individual and not the household level.

[TheodoricFriede]

Welp.

Love him. Hate him.

It's looking increasingly likely that the Trump Presidency, if nothing else, will be historically significant.

[Sinekein]

The same kind of significance the Titanic's shipwreck had from the looks of it.

Hopefully it leads to some measures so that it does not happen again because I don't really see who in the USA, let alone the world, benefits from all that.

Okay, anyone whose initials aren't V.P.

[Raga]

The same kind of significance the Titanic's shipwreck had from the looks of it.

Hopefully it leads to some measures so that it does not happen again because I don't really see who in the USA, let alone the world, benefits from all that.

Okay, anyone whose initials aren't V.P.

What "measures" precisely would those be? Short of becoming an explicit oligarchy in which official high-rank people only get to vote like the church chooses a pope, I don't see how it's possible to be a democracy and also to guarantee we only pick the candidate the educated class prefers.

[Alienmorph]

Yeah, sadly it's one of the risks of being in a democracy. As the saying goes "the price for freedom is eternal vigilance". You avoid to pur in charge morons like Trump, or the people in charge of my country right now, making sure everyone knows how much of a shit idea that was, and making sure thei're aware it was avoidable, so that next time at the very least people know to go for the lesser evil, if no valid candidates are avaiable.

Censoring or hindering who can be put in office and who can't is a very slippery slope.

That said, the sooner this new populist trend dies the fuck out, the better.

[Raga]

New low in leftists trying to undermine ICE with sob story tactics: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... -hospital/

"A California man just wanted to stop for gas as he drove his pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth. Instead, Joel Arrona is now in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement custody, and a newborn baby is separated from his father."

Oh, yea, that sounds heartless of ICE. If only we would just let poor guys wanted for murder alone so they can be with their newborn children:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

But you forgot to mention that part.

[Raga]

Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but some outfit took a picture of the famous bull statue on Wall Street from the back, which I'd never seen before. And it's....way less flattering and kinda cracked me up.

[Sinekein]

Yeah, sadly it's one of the risks of being in a democracy. As the saying goes "the price for freedom is eternal vigilance". You avoid to pur in charge morons like Trump, or the people in charge of my country right now, making sure everyone knows how much of a shit idea that was, and making sure thei're aware it was avoidable, so that next time at the very least people know to go for the lesser evil, if no valid candidates are avaiable.

Censoring or hindering who can be put in office and who can't is a very slippery slope.

That said, the sooner this new populist trend dies the fuck out, the better.

Yeah but you can change the rules on a variety of topics. Like campaign financing, to avoid what is currently happening. The Electoral College system is honestly obsolete in that day and age, it is great from a narrative point of view, but it does not even begin to make sense. The system is also too bipartisan, and it is hurting the country more than anything at the moment, there should be a real opportunity for other parties to rise (and fall).

And voting on Tuesdays. In the 21st century, it's just incredibly backwards, like the French rule of "no results before 8PM" which means that everyone in Europe knows about the results of our elections before we do.

New low in leftists

You got to admit that the records that are set daily by the right-wingers in charge of the country are so incredible, you have to go far if you want to compete.

Populism in general seems to be suffering a hard reality check at the moment - except in Central Europe.

[TheodoricFriede]

Yeah but you can change the rules on a variety of topics. Like campaign financing, to avoid what is currently happening. The Electoral College system is honestly obsolete in that day and age, it is great from a narrative point of view, but it does not even begin to make sense. The system is also too bipartisan, and it is hurting the country more than anything at the moment, there should be a real opportunity for other parties to rise (and fall).

Donald Trump was a Billionaire who could have funded his own campaign.

The electoral college exists so that 3 cities in the entirety of the United States, which is both enormous and has vastly differing populations from place to place, do not control everything in the country.

I find it incredibly amusing that the Electoral College is only "broken" during the extremely rare times it actually serves the purpose it was created for.

[Raga]

Yeah but you can change the rules on a variety of topics. Like campaign financing, to avoid what is currently happening. The Electoral College system is honestly obsolete in that day and age, it is great from a narrative point of view, but it does not even begin to make sense. The system is also too bipartisan, and it is hurting the country more than anything at the moment, there should be a real opportunity for other parties to rise (and fall).

And voting on Tuesdays. In the 21st century, it's just incredibly backwards, like the French rule of "no results before 8PM" which means that everyone in Europe knows about the results of our elections before we do.

For the record, I actually agree with most of these reforms because they open up the path to an easier rule by the majority, but I have an inherent problem with pursuing them under the mantle of explicitly trying to engineer what kinds of candidates can and can't get elected. The people advocating these reforms mostly advocate them because current demographics stipulate they would most likely get their way more often if they were enacted. But what happens when demographics shift and coalitions slide as they inevitably always do and suddenly what was once profitable for your party isn't so much anymore? (Voter suppression did quite well for the Democrats in 1950). There is no actually fair or democratic system which could be engineered in such a way that it guarantees that some Trump type dude isn't elected.

You got to admit that the records that are set daily by the right-wingers in charge of the country are so incredible, you have to go far if you want to compete.

Populism in general seems to be suffering a hard reality check at the moment - except in Central Europe.

Sure, I never claimed otherwise. But I also encounter way fewer people on the right claiming that "reality has a conservative bias" and they are the "party of science" and such. Inasmuch as the left never refrains from rightly pointing out how the "party of family values" consistently and grossly undermines common decency and family values, I see no reason not to point out when they flagrantly employ sentimental arguments that ignore objective facts.