urshanabi [he/they]

  • 2 Posts
  • 71 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 3rd, 2023

help-circle

  • What really really gets me is when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is brought up, used to discredit and impart vileness on to the Soviet Union due to their association with Nazis (ignoring context, and other countries who made similar pacts earlier) and then the source of the awfulness, self-identifying (i.e. unambiguous) Nazis are pacified of negativity!

    What? How do you use something to say something else is bad, then say that the something initially was actually not that bad! How does it not follow that the initial comparison and association at the very least be brought into question?


  • I didn’t know about him and ASD. Of course creating the environment in society at large (as opposed to small hidden spaces) for women, non-binary, gender diverse and other LGBTQ2SI+ folks is important.

    I really don’t know what a decent method forward is that looks like in a way that in the interim doesn’t lead to issues like the surge of derision and cruelty towards trans folks in the UK. To me, this is evidently something that occurs towards neurodivergent or otherwise broadly defined individuals whom do not conform where gender is not the primary distinguishing factor (lingual, ethnic, etc.)






  • I think there are good replies in the thread.

    Per OECD for 2021, the majority of suicides in the US are by men at 23.000 per capita. The national average is 14.100 per capita and for women it’s reported to be 5.700 per capita.

    The following isn’t sourced, my understanding is that women in aggregate have more suicide attempts. Men often use guns, if the sickness that affects the people who commit suicide and those who commit mass shootings is similar, I don’t think it’s far-fetched to say a solution to the poor mental health of men would benefit women quite a lot as well. I understand that it is a part of the culture in the US, despite that I think the knock-on effects of treating a large proportion of the population of individuals who have a higher chance of being involved with death through the use of a gun would perhaps decrease a ton of gun related harm.

    What could be done for mental health? I think women’s rights need to be protected first, which may be unintuitive for some. As that would generally reduce tension. I’m not a woman, I have read sentiments from the US where women stated they were very cautious with becoming romantically involved with men as there is a higher risk getting pregnant if you are sexually active and there would be no recourse for them if they decided they did not want the baby. Being on edge like that is not conducive towards an open and health environment for all involved I think.

    The reason why I don’t think enacting too many restrictive laws (say banning all handguns or something which would be negatively viewed across the political aisle), some of which disproportionally affect men would work, is it doesn’t seem as though it would positively affect men’s mental health.

    Maybe one might argue that operating in men’s interests has been the standard operating procedure, why would it work now? As well, why does it make sense to aid them when they have historically had certain advantages?

    Unfortunately for that argument, though I am sympathetic as I believe the opposite can be very invalidating for those who suffer, is not necessarily productive. I really think, like most issues, it needs to be treated from the perspective of the individuals interests guided towards a common interest. Of course if it’s only done for their benefit to the detriment of any other group it wouldn’t really work. That said, in any area where there’s change there are contradictions. Solving those contradictions unfortunately involves some give and take, the outcomes might be known but the path certainly isn’t. The uncertainty is definitely enough to dissuade anyone from acting, and the dialectical response is to pursue nonetheless.

    NOTE Per capita means in every 100 000 persons





  • I don’t think this is true. The commonly cited reference is James Madison’s Federalist Paper No. 10, I’ll provide the relevant excerpt and a Wikipedia link, though I’ll urge caution as they aren’t authoritative sources by any means. Bolding is mine.

    Preamble

    Federalist No. 10 continues a theme begun in Federalist No. 9 and is titled “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”. The whole series is cited by scholars and jurists as an authoritative interpretation and explication of the meaning of the Constitution. Historians such as Charles A. Beard argue that No. 10 shows an explicit rejection by the Founding Fathers of the principles of direct democracy and factionalism, and argue that Madison suggests that a representative republic is more effective against partisanship and factionalism.

    Cherry-picked quote cited by Garry Wills

    Garry Wills is a noted critic of Madison’s argument in Federalist No. 10. In his book Explaining America, he adopts the position of Robert Dahl in arguing that Madison’s framework does not necessarily enhance the protections of minorities or ensure the common good. Instead, Wills claims: “Minorities can make use of dispersed and staggered governmental machinery to clog, delay, slow down, hamper, and obstruct the majority. But these weapons for delay are given to the minority irrespective of its factious or nonfactious character; and they can be used against the majority irrespective of its factious or nonfactious character. What Madison prevents is not faction, but action. What he protects is not the common good but delay as such”.

    EDIT: Here’s where I first heard of the argument that the US is not a democracy (in the sense it’s thought of by everyday use, as opposed to the Greek which involves the concept of demos. He’s a Marxist, thought it might be relevant and wouldn’t want to waste your time only to figure it out later.

    EDIT EDIT: I didn’t even make my point, whoops. I think the founding fathers were not unaware of the current state of affairs of the electoral college being probsble, rather it was included by design.


  • It’s so strange, in that one post they’ll transfer the badness associated with Nazis → Soviets → Russians and then absolve the folks who were Nazi affiliated for an extensive period and even the Nazis themself.

    It reminds me of math when you have a negative and non-negative multiply which makes the product negative, or the negative can be transferred to the multiplicant and the product remains the same.

    -Nazi • Soviet = Bad Where Soviet is equal to Russian, then -Nazi • Russian = Bad Nazi • -Russia = Bad QED Russia is Bad