I dunno, the US routinely just states plainly how many people they massacre and folks in the US seem okay with it.
I'd assume that when the Chinese do bad things people in China feel the same way about that as folks in the US feel about the US doing evil stuff, which is to say "very little at all". Why would they need to lie, any more than the US needs to lie? Do the average Chinese folks have more conscience then the average US citizen?
"the US routinely just states plainly how many people they massacre and folks in the US seem okay with it."
What a nonsensical thing to say. The CCP ruthlessly sensors all discussion of the massacre and every LLM created in China sensors it. So stop it with the BS whataboutism
I went to part one of a two day "street medic" training today.
It's basically like the Wilderness first aid course I took once, but with an emphasis on how to help folks deal with the various chemical weapons that the state uses.
I've been pepper sprayed- it's not so bad.
But I expect it won't be the last time.
I am rather frighted of the idea that there could come a time when the state apparatus won't simply use less-lethal force, because I and a lot of folks are only non-violent because of choice and not capacity and I don't think it would go the way a lot of the fantasies of the III% assholes think it would.
Anyhow, I live in the sticks and am able to find the community of folks who are already at a point of non-compliance phase and who have been willing to suffer physical harm for it.
There are, I understand, a whole lot more folks in cities who feel similarly.
If they bring the situation the point you're describing, please rest assured that it won't be you engaging folks by yourself but you engaging them with your community.
Seek out that community while it's still easy enough that it seems like a wingnut kind of thing to do.
As a person who a lot of folks would consider, to use the kids' term, "noided up", I don't know if I agree.
My experience has been that in general the fact that there are so many folks able to get traction with their poorly-informed ideas and who face little or no consequences (rhetorically) for being show wrong time-and-again has led to a situation where we can go from "limited hangouts" to "we just publish facts and folks ignore it thinking they are just like all the other dumb things people say".
Like, it's incredibly hard to talk about how many horrible things the US has done and published abut over the years (I am thinking of Pheonix, Bluebird, Artichoke, etc) without sounding like a crank even when the government itself is the primary source.
Authoritarian governments crushing truth directly, but that doesn't mean that liberal governments don't have heavy layers of propaganda to maintain their control.
As a principle, "YOLO anyone should say whatever and never face rhetorical consequences" probably just results in the same destruction of the truth, as you might see in this thread.
Many "liberal governments" of the West certainly have some authoritarian elements to them. I don't see that as a conflict with advocating for free speech. If the government is running the propaganda, who is supposed to push against that other than dissidents protected by free speech? It certainly won't be the government or "the authorities".
I don't understand what "YOLO anyone should say whatever and never face rhetorical consequences" means. Who should be enforcing these consequences? What even is a "rhetorical consequence"?
As ever, the problem with creating an authority to regulate what is truth, is who is going to be that authority, and how are we going to prevent it from being corrupted by human nature.
You don't need a ministry of truth to have a bit of shame when you say say something incorrect or to recall what really bad and false positions people take or to remember when you've put out bad ideas that were incorrect.
Oh, I think I see what you're saying. If I'm understanding the thrust of your argument:
I do think it would be good if people would be more humble in what they think they know and be more willing to engage with the argument presented by the "other side", and not be so tribal. More introspection, and less blindly doing as they are told, while acknowledging "doctors", "scientists", "reporters", are all actually humans that have human emotions, various incentives, varying knowledge, who sometimes do stupid things, and sometimes things with malevolent intent. They are not all-being, all-seeing, all-virtuous non-humans, so don't take everything at face value.
It's not a hard read, and probably would take most adults an hour or two. Maybe just go read it if you're curious, and if you don't like it then quit after a chapter or two.
I like it. I got a lot out of the encounter with the fox, specifically, and that helped me in how I relate to a lot of my friends and lovers.
Also, for what it's worth, I did spend last Friday driving around collecting pictures of the local flock cameras in my small local municipality and associating them with their deflock listings (and did discover an error), and have been discussing what we will do about them with my local group of activists.
I don't have a great grasp on our shared material reality, but I am trying to get better at it.
"This sneering oversimplification pushes people away from generosity. "
If you don't like "sneering oversimplification" you're really not gonna like it when you find out what smug "I'm the adult in the room" rhetoric does to both how you're perceived by interlocutors and the limitations on your own ability to work out the logic of these situations.
I mean, I personally don't believe in chemtrails or "mind control" myself, but to each their own- even if the CIA had explicit programs because -they- (falsely, in my opinion) believed in "mind control.
And you can ignore the 2009 US-backed honduras coup and everything back to the 1953 coup against Árbenz if you want, and take my tongue in cheek reference to the murder of JFK as evidence that I'm a crank- I'm used to that, even if very rarely have I heard the folks making those assertions make a plausible and informed case of what did happen to JFK.
But still, even if you ignore me because I am crank, you're not going to get beyond a simple, likely-racist, and probably wrong understanding of US immigration without understanding long-term US foreign policy in South and Central America.
For the last year and a half I've been living off grid in rural Colorado. I have a membership in the community rec center (which is very nice) and town service (also very nice) so I can use their gym, but mostly to use the shower and hot tub.
Personally, I think that being in locker rooms has been healthy- it's a good reminder that some day I am going to be super wrinkly if I live that long. It's been an interesting experiment in existing in public spaces.
If you're uncomfortable in those kinds of siutations, I wouldn't tell you what to do, but honestly "getting over" being weirded out by old naked folks is definitely a thing you might find worth while to work out.
Well, I have 15kwh of batteries in a shed (powering my internet connection and this computer, actually). The are mostly in a shed for convenience- I'm not too worried about a fire, personally.
You can charge them when freezing, but you can discharge them while freezing.
Discharging them causes their internal temperature to rise.
Last winter (I'm in the desert in CO at about 6k feet, with temps in the single digits at some points) my graphs say that they never failed to reach 40-something degrees and charge.
Maybe there are other issues I don't know about, but I certainly hope they work as well this winter as they did last winter.
I'd assume that when the Chinese do bad things people in China feel the same way about that as folks in the US feel about the US doing evil stuff, which is to say "very little at all". Why would they need to lie, any more than the US needs to lie? Do the average Chinese folks have more conscience then the average US citizen?
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