To be fair, this was the case in my secular(-ish) public school as well and I believe it was there until the early 2000s. The catholic church has many sins (which Squid did a great job laying out above), but I don’t think they, as a group, endorse the concept of corporal punishment like they do with anti-choice practices or the rampant pedophilia. That’s a cultural issue with certain regions of the US.
There’s conflicting narratives coming out of Israel again. It’s fully possible they tank this, but I wouldn’t take those comments from the UN rep as a rejection of this deal (yet).
They never took it from me! Animal Well and Dread Delusion are phenomenal experiences just from the last couple of months. Indies are always generating good games, even when AAA is just following trends.
Completely agreed. It’s the difference between your political views being an excuse for you to feel morally validated or being a mechanism to improve lives. If it’s the latter, it’s time to get to work. We’re failing and thus losing our ability to do what we stated. If it’s people being idiots, educate them. If it’s people being lied to, reach them. Regardless, we live in a democracy and the entire point is that the people get to choose and the people are rejecting us. We cannot fail to heed those cries.
We must create an inspiring vision that resonates with voters and alleviates their concerns. The stats clearly show people are concerned about immigration and the economy. The right has a cruel, but effective approach in just stopping immigration entirely and many, many people think that is a good idea right now. What is our better answer? I’m no expert and I don’t know, but that is in and of itself a serious problem. Why do I not have a Meloni I can point to as the beacon of my ideology, that has at least some of the answers?
… or don’t introspect, blame the voters, and lose forever. It could not matter less what is true, it’s only what the populace believes. That’s politics. If our ideology can’t stand up to this, it must adjust or it deserves to fail.
I agree with you, and yet… It’s winning them elections. We can be upset about it all we want, but it’s increasingly clear that bigotry and xenophobia are winning arguments in this era. We’re fucked if we don’t adjust. I’m not proposing we abandon migrants, but the one thing myself and the person you replied to likely agree on is that the left is increasingly losing sight of home and the average citizen, not in terms of rhetoric but in effect. We’re about to lose the EU and possibly lose support for Ukraine, see even more immigration restrictions, and see an empowered global far-right. The voters are telling us they have different priorities, which we need to focus on in a more altruistic way than the right. We have to be introspective here if we ever want to accomplish our goals.
Can you imagine the hours of genAI boinga reviews? We lost so much comedy. One of the hardest celeb deaths for me and I’m not even sure why really. Watching the stream that night and waking up to the news was just… awful.
GFYDL and RIP Trevor. I still miss Newsboyz and would have loved to hear his takes on the queen dying, the AI craze… Ugh.
Support? Nah, that’s rare to the point of non-existence. I completely agree with your second sentence and I think people who are not willing to make the concession from the first half because of the second, substituting Hamas for ISIS, are doing themselves and Palestinians a massive disservice. Explanations are not excuses, and the behavior of both Israel and Hamas in the modern era cannot be excused.
I’ve never said that people should ignore any attempt at logic and just focus on their passions, but the modern cult of rationality and stoicism is ironically hugely lacking in self-awareness and rationality.
I’ve never said that people should ignore any attempt at passion and just focus on their logic, but the modern mobs of righteous indignation and fury are ironically hugely lacking in empathy, tolerance (not of intolerance, before that gets tossed at me), and pragmatism.
I agree that we mostly seem to be on the same page, but I really need to stress that I have not asked people to be soulless and I think that’s a mischaracterization of my asking for people to set their passion aside as much as possible as an exercise which is inherently temporary. We’re both just looking for balance here.
Agreed on all counts regarding pirating, DRM, copyright, etc. It’s a messed up landscape and we need legislation and community action around it, for certain. Even aside from capitalism, technology is shifting rapidly and that causes its own issues as society struggle to keep up.
The idea that everyone owns all art is interesting, but I’m not sure that I agree. Seems similar, but a bit distinct from the death of the author idea. I have created things and I am not comfortable with the idea that I do not have ownership of the work. There is obviously nuance there and I don’t expect to have full control over how my art is received or parodied or memed on or whatever, that’s fine, but it is my choice as to how I distribute it, how I created it, how I choose to maintain it. Netflix cannot force me into a contract with them. Hulu can’t. Disney can’t. I can release my art right onto the internet or my own website. Every artist has that freedom. It has consequences, but that’s not persecution or unethical, in my opinion.
Okay. Don’t consume that media? Artists are not forced into contracts with Netflix. They can do what thousands of artists did before Netflix ever existed. Will they hit the same level of audience that Netflix pulls? No. People like streaming and it’s popular as hell. Why would they be entitled to that though? Artists, creators of any type really, have agency to do as they wish with their art. Consumers have a choice in the art they consume. If either chooses to engage with Netflix, why would it not be on the terms that Netflix has openly set and asked you whether you wanted to partake in?
I just do not understand this viewpoint and it’s all over the thread. To be clear, Netflix does other stuff that sucks, like killing shows and underpaying artists. Be mad at them for that all you like, I’ll be right there with ya. Insinuating Netflix is doing something ethically bad by pivoting to streaming, which the vast majority of the world’s population would rather use than physical media, just does not make a lick of sense to me. Why should Netflix pay employees, rent factory space, set up an entire vertical they’ve gotten out of, just to produce CDs that history showed hardly anyone bought after the transition to streaming?
I’m just not sure I’ve gotten my point across to you bc93. I’m not asking anyone to become an emotionless automation. That’s of course a nightmarish outcome. That’s full logic, no passion. Bad. In that same exact manner, all passion, no logic is also horrible. The history of people who have done that is also extremely dark. Nobody is advocating for either of those though!
When I tell someone to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes”, I am not asking them to lose their sense of self or to base their final decision entirely on that other person. It’s a thought mechanism we use to emphasize our sense of empathy, which gives us a new perspective that we fold into our amalgamation of ideas.
I’m not asking for anyone to turn their emotions off forever, or even deluded enough to think you can do that fully at all, in the same way that I don’t expect anyone to fully convert their brain into another person’s to empathize. It doesn’t matter, it’s still a useful exercise in part.
That’s all I’m asking for. There is a lot of nuance and complexity to all situations, and passion is blinding. I’m not a Buddhist, but they have a concept of Bonno, those passions that inspire us to actions that harm ourselves or others. I don’t think Buddhists are quite on the same level as Ben Shapiro and the Nazis just because they recognize that passion can be blinding.
I don’t think we should completely neglect our passions. They make us who we are and define our truest selves! Passion is blinding though. Anyone who has ever felt true passion about anything knows this. It takes both passion and cold logic to achieve truly good things. Passion is inherently the stronger of the two though, so you have to set it aside (temporarily) to truly indulge your logic. Then put those together.
I definitely do not agree with using passion as the center of your political movement. That’s demagoguery, by definition. It’s common and we’re all susceptible to it, but it’s not a good thing.
I agree with you re: the origins of Hamas. It truly could not matter less right now. Hamas exists, and they’re doing terrible things to Palestinians and Israelis alike, just like Israel is. They’re both issues we need to solve and I’m not willing to set one aside for the other.
Both, I think! Nintendo was originally a company that made generic playing cards. They’re extremely old too. I haven’t looked recently but I think they were around before ww2?
Netflix? How can Netflix have enough power to force artists to release through their service? I’ve enjoyed tons of movies and TV from other sources. They may not have the same reach, but that’s a far cry from “forcing” you to do something. If you go with the megacorp with the most reach for your art, expect to make concessions. If you release on your own, it can be tough but you have full control. There are myriad points in the gradient between.
I’m just a member of the LGBT community. But also, I am an American, which means kinda, but not directly. Hamas does not have a rosy view on people from the US.
But also… Hamas terrorizes Palestinians as well, so not sure what point you’re trying to make here.
Edit: Not sure who replied, but I have you blocked. Just didn’t want you to have to wait for a response.
I was going to make the same sort of metaphor with Nintendo until I looked it up and saw that they still produce playing cards 🙃
Yknow, I won’t even say it’s not hard. It can be so hard when you’re bombarded by horrific images and stories every day. It sucks and it puts people into very passionate mindsets. Passion is the death of reason though, and we’d all be better served engaging our super ego a bit, taking a deep breath, and saying “Hey, I’m upset right now, but I need to try to look at this objectively”. You don’t have to shove anything under a rug. You don’t have to make excuses for anyone. Just… try to think separate from your feelings. It’s a useful exercise.
Israel is committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Hamas committed horrific acts of terrorism on Oct 6 and had continued to commit horrific acts concerning the hostages. We can keep going and listing every little thing going back millenia, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that both of these groups are religious extremism writ large, deserve condemnation, and are actively persecuting the Palestinian people.
I think the distributed nature of Mastodon keeps government control from being an issue. It would be kind of cool as a space for citizens to ask for assistance or air grievances while giving the politicians an officially owned space for things like announcements.