Hey buddy, it's me from that other comment about population density. I'm not going to get too detailed in this comment cause you've got a whole other thing going with that Melvin guy, but I just wanted to say congrats on seeing some success against the AfD and Nazis and I envy your opinion that peaceful protesting can still bring great short- and long-term benefits.
Unfortunately, I still think America is too far(-right) gone for something like that to work. 7 of the 10 largest protests in American history can be directly linked back to protesting against Trump (4 of the top 5 occurred just within the last 12 months, with the last one being the Women's March of 2017 aka right as Trump's first term started) and all of these have accomplished..... well, nothing. Not a single damn thing. That's 33 million people (if you do like I did and assume the highest estimate was 100% correct and there were no overlaps, so a highly unrealistic skew in their favor), just under 10% of the entire country peacefully protesting Trump at some point aaaaand nothing happened. Hell, most people probably don't even remember a single one of the three seperate No Kings protests.
On the other hand, the Maga cult managed to storm the Capitol building with only about 2,000 protesters on Jan 6th 2021 (something like 0.0005% of the population) and even though they technically failed in their goal at the time, it had (and continues to have) FAR reaching effects on American politics. Several people died, hundreds injured, and exactly 0 negative consequences for the man who started it; Hell, he even managed to get reelected afterwards and pardon almost all of them anyway so it was really a net-positive for him by far.
We could have a good, long discussion about the ethics/morals of protesting peacefully in a vacuum, but at the end of the day, in reality, force speaks volumes. I'm not advocating we do the same and go all-in on violence right off the bat, but rather "force" which I'm defining here as "the willingness to defend one's self or ideals with violence if necessary," should not be shied away from. If we go in 'protesting' by standing on sidewalks with cardboard signs, nothing gets accomplished except leaving the road open for them to roll over us later. It is no coincidence that many of the greatest changes brought through history began as "civil disobedience" that began peacefully only to end in violence when (surprise) the State wanted to maintain the status quo. We may be hesitant to use force, they will not be so kind-hearted
Trump has spent the previous decade proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he cares only for himself, his power, and his image. He will stop at nothing to gobble up as much as he can which is why we muat be prepared to stop him by any means necessary. In the words of one of our greatest Presidents, "Speak softly, but carry a big stick"
Mine doesn't list a source (and it has very few pixels if you try to zoom in) so take it with a grain of salt, but they at least appear to be attempting to make it as close to a 1:1 comparison as possible. And I agree, we don't need the whole country to mobilize as one, but let's look at how the US has ~50 individual specks of purple separated by vast areas of white/tan/orange, even in the more well known states like New York, Texas, and California. Meanwhile, Europe is basically ALL purple and orange until you get to mountainous areas like the Scandinavian hinterland.
If I'm living in a small town in southern France and I want to protest, I could hop on the train and be in Paris in like, 6 hours at most. If I lived in a small town in let's say, the (Eastern) Midwest and wanted to do the same in Washington DC, well public transport is already out of the question in the VAST majority of cases (trains here don't visit small towns unless it's for industrial reasons), so I'm gonna have to drive myself. 6 hour drive to DC puts my starting location somewhere around Columbus, Ohio (dead center of Ohio, but arguably not even in the Midwest depending on who you ask, or at least on the outer rim of it). Pretty much anything further west than that (2/3s of the country at least) and I'm looking at a multi-day investment just to GET to the protest, not to mention all the other shit that goes along with it. You could always try protesting at the State capitals, but those will automatically be lesser in size and effectiveness (no one cares if 1 out of 50 states is having problems, that's literally happening all the time) and depending on my state, that might still be an all-day drive.
I like your idea of using the internet to help, but the reality of the situation is that without human bodies physically showing up, there's no real incentive for DC to actually DO anything. There have been millions, possibly billions, of critical things said about Trump's administration online, but that hasn't changed anything for the better.
Lastly, like you said, we both agree that propoganda is one of the biggest obstacles here, but I don't know how much we agree on us 'having more power than we seem to know'. I've seen various estimates and each time the number seems to be increasing, but roughly HALF of all American households will be out of money if they go two or three months without a paycheck. Period. We have no social safety net. If you're deemed 'good enough to work' then you better be working, otherwise you're homeless which, in this country, might as well be a death sentence. Sure, there are a small handful of exceptions to this, but they put up so many roadblocks and hoops to jump through that trying to get on and stay on Welfare is basically a job in and of itself, and they will only provide you with the bare essentials; if you even think about one luxury good, that money disappears instantly.
As much as I hate to admit it, in America, the Capitalists have won for the time being and there's really nothing to be done about it short of a complete overhaul of MOST of how this country operates
As much as I want to be on your side, I gotta mostly agree with the other guy here: Europeans have the advantage of a very high population density overall, especially compared to America. I don't know where you're from but taking the Fremch as an example because they live and breathe protesting and revolutions, they could (and have) gather a MASSIVE protest of millions of people from all over the country in the span of just a few hours when they set their minds to it. Meanwhile, in the US, outside the small handful of cities everyone is familiar with (New York, Los Angeles, etc) the vast majority of us are spread out over thousands of miles (1.61 x thousands) of kilometers in pockets too small to really have any effect at all.
After some admitedly-quick research, the EU has about 100 million more people and a little less than half the land that the US has. These two compounding factors alone make it MUCH easier to facilitate any kind of social change on your side of the pond, but that's not even including factors like our complete lack of any REAL public infrastructure, harsher work-life balance by every metric, and (though I could be wrong here) a generally pro-union culture whereas our unions have been demonized to Hell and back (pun intended) for at least the previous 150 years
1-Yes I do. I'm an overthinker who usually wastes way too much time, effort, and energy on thinking about which EXACT words I want to use in a given situation and at some point I just decided that using they/them works perfectly well most of the time
2-For example, I never said "always", I said "the majority of people" which is just anything more than precisely 50%.
3-If I'm being real picky, the MOST commonly used pronoun I say is probably the variations of "you". If I were to apply it to this situation I might tell you "Gee, someone must have pissed in your cereal this morning". But if I was describing this interaction to a friend I would tell them "This one person was really pissing me off, someone must have pissed in their cereal this morning." I don't know you or how you identify or what pronouns you prefer but it is still perfectly valid English grammar. See how that works?
4-Stop white knighting for people who are perfectly capable of standing up for themselves, at least not over stupid shit like this. It will never make them more accepted by bigots (your ACTUAL opponent). In fact, it only makes their acceptance by the rest of society that much harder if they feel like they have to walk on eggshells every time they try to have a conversation. If you see something truly, unmistakably transphobic, go right ahead, I won't stop you from trying to stamp that shit out. But trying to gatekeep people who 'aren't the right kind of Ally' will earn you no friends, not even from the community you think you're helping
I didn't do so intentionally. Honestly I just find it easier to use they/them for the majority of people anyway, especially with the increase in anonymous identities since the rise of the internet.
I agree with everything you said right up until you pulled in Ayn Rand at the very end (yes I know she didn't invent the phrase but boy do I hate her with a burning passion). Still upvoted you for providing a reasonable discussion instead of just diving into personal attacks or other bad faith arguments like some others here on the Internet. Much appreciated
To be fair, their total screen time was what? 10 minutes? Out of a 3 hour movie? And half of that was them being killed and the other half was playing a shade/ghost whose only purpose was to admonish Odysseus for letting them be killed? Sure, the character of Sinon had more significance to the story (or at least, to Odysseus specifically), but that part of their story was played by a literal 13 year old (Mason Cufari according to IMDb). Have I seen stronger roles from Elliot before? Oh for sure, but this role wasn't supposed to be the creme de la creme. For a purely supporting role, I for one thought they were perfectly suitable.
P.S. Sinon doesn't even appear in the original myth AT ALL, regardless of translation. He was borrowed from Virgil's The Aeneid which has its own set of goals, themes, and biases
Not necessarily? Idk man, language evolves, the word "nerd" doesn't have the same meaning/connotations as it did 40 years ago, nor the same as it will have 40 years from now. Either way, my brain is fried from work so I'm just gonna sit this one out. Feel free to use my comment as a Strawman if you must
Goddammit I should've gotten that. Thanks!
Is this a reference I'm too ignorant to get?
Delicious AND painful
It's okay, the alcohol will kill the toxins in the beans
Source: Dude, trust
Aww you beat me to it
Hey buddy, it's me from that other comment about population density. I'm not going to get too detailed in this comment cause you've got a whole other thing going with that Melvin guy, but I just wanted to say congrats on seeing some success against the AfD and Nazis and I envy your opinion that peaceful protesting can still bring great short- and long-term benefits.
Unfortunately, I still think America is too far(-right) gone for something like that to work. 7 of the 10 largest protests in American history can be directly linked back to protesting against Trump (4 of the top 5 occurred just within the last 12 months, with the last one being the Women's March of 2017 aka right as Trump's first term started) and all of these have accomplished..... well, nothing. Not a single damn thing. That's 33 million people (if you do like I did and assume the highest estimate was 100% correct and there were no overlaps, so a highly unrealistic skew in their favor), just under 10% of the entire country peacefully protesting Trump at some point aaaaand nothing happened. Hell, most people probably don't even remember a single one of the three seperate No Kings protests.
On the other hand, the Maga cult managed to storm the Capitol building with only about 2,000 protesters on Jan 6th 2021 (something like 0.0005% of the population) and even though they technically failed in their goal at the time, it had (and continues to have) FAR reaching effects on American politics. Several people died, hundreds injured, and exactly 0 negative consequences for the man who started it; Hell, he even managed to get reelected afterwards and pardon almost all of them anyway so it was really a net-positive for him by far.
We could have a good, long discussion about the ethics/morals of protesting peacefully in a vacuum, but at the end of the day, in reality, force speaks volumes. I'm not advocating we do the same and go all-in on violence right off the bat, but rather "force" which I'm defining here as "the willingness to defend one's self or ideals with violence if necessary," should not be shied away from. If we go in 'protesting' by standing on sidewalks with cardboard signs, nothing gets accomplished except leaving the road open for them to roll over us later. It is no coincidence that many of the greatest changes brought through history began as "civil disobedience" that began peacefully only to end in violence when (surprise) the State wanted to maintain the status quo. We may be hesitant to use force, they will not be so kind-hearted
Trump has spent the previous decade proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he cares only for himself, his power, and his image. He will stop at nothing to gobble up as much as he can which is why we muat be prepared to stop him by any means necessary. In the words of one of our greatest Presidents, "Speak softly, but carry a big stick"
Mine doesn't list a source (and it has very few pixels if you try to zoom in) so take it with a grain of salt, but they at least appear to be attempting to make it as close to a 1:1 comparison as possible. And I agree, we don't need the whole country to mobilize as one, but let's look at how the US has ~50 individual specks of purple separated by vast areas of white/tan/orange, even in the more well known states like New York, Texas, and California. Meanwhile, Europe is basically ALL purple and orange until you get to mountainous areas like the Scandinavian hinterland.
If I'm living in a small town in southern France and I want to protest, I could hop on the train and be in Paris in like, 6 hours at most. If I lived in a small town in let's say, the (Eastern) Midwest and wanted to do the same in Washington DC, well public transport is already out of the question in the VAST majority of cases (trains here don't visit small towns unless it's for industrial reasons), so I'm gonna have to drive myself. 6 hour drive to DC puts my starting location somewhere around Columbus, Ohio (dead center of Ohio, but arguably not even in the Midwest depending on who you ask, or at least on the outer rim of it). Pretty much anything further west than that (2/3s of the country at least) and I'm looking at a multi-day investment just to GET to the protest, not to mention all the other shit that goes along with it. You could always try protesting at the State capitals, but those will automatically be lesser in size and effectiveness (no one cares if 1 out of 50 states is having problems, that's literally happening all the time) and depending on my state, that might still be an all-day drive.
I like your idea of using the internet to help, but the reality of the situation is that without human bodies physically showing up, there's no real incentive for DC to actually DO anything. There have been millions, possibly billions, of critical things said about Trump's administration online, but that hasn't changed anything for the better.
Lastly, like you said, we both agree that propoganda is one of the biggest obstacles here, but I don't know how much we agree on us 'having more power than we seem to know'. I've seen various estimates and each time the number seems to be increasing, but roughly HALF of all American households will be out of money if they go two or three months without a paycheck. Period. We have no social safety net. If you're deemed 'good enough to work' then you better be working, otherwise you're homeless which, in this country, might as well be a death sentence. Sure, there are a small handful of exceptions to this, but they put up so many roadblocks and hoops to jump through that trying to get on and stay on Welfare is basically a job in and of itself, and they will only provide you with the bare essentials; if you even think about one luxury good, that money disappears instantly.
As much as I hate to admit it, in America, the Capitalists have won for the time being and there's really nothing to be done about it short of a complete overhaul of MOST of how this country operates
As much as I want to be on your side, I gotta mostly agree with the other guy here: Europeans have the advantage of a very high population density overall, especially compared to America. I don't know where you're from but taking the Fremch as an example because they live and breathe protesting and revolutions, they could (and have) gather a MASSIVE protest of millions of people from all over the country in the span of just a few hours when they set their minds to it. Meanwhile, in the US, outside the small handful of cities everyone is familiar with (New York, Los Angeles, etc) the vast majority of us are spread out over
thousands of miles(1.61 x thousands) of kilometers in pockets too small to really have any effect at all.After some admitedly-quick research, the EU has about 100 million more people and a little less than half the land that the US has. These two compounding factors alone make it MUCH easier to facilitate any kind of social change on your side of the pond, but that's not even including factors like our complete lack of any REAL public infrastructure, harsher work-life balance by every metric, and (though I could be wrong here) a generally pro-union culture whereas our unions have been demonized to Hell and back (pun intended) for at least the previous 150 years
Can you truly blame me?
I'd love to see his attempt to 'solve' Go like this
Obviously the main conclusion to draw is that you need more sleep
1-Yes I do. I'm an overthinker who usually wastes way too much time, effort, and energy on thinking about which EXACT words I want to use in a given situation and at some point I just decided that using they/them works perfectly well most of the time
2-For example, I never said "always", I said "the majority of people" which is just anything more than precisely 50%.
3-If I'm being real picky, the MOST commonly used pronoun I say is probably the variations of "you". If I were to apply it to this situation I might tell you "Gee, someone must have pissed in your cereal this morning". But if I was describing this interaction to a friend I would tell them "This one person was really pissing me off, someone must have pissed in their cereal this morning." I don't know you or how you identify or what pronouns you prefer but it is still perfectly valid English grammar. See how that works?
4-Stop white knighting for people who are perfectly capable of standing up for themselves, at least not over stupid shit like this. It will never make them more accepted by bigots (your ACTUAL opponent). In fact, it only makes their acceptance by the rest of society that much harder if they feel like they have to walk on eggshells every time they try to have a conversation. If you see something truly, unmistakably transphobic, go right ahead, I won't stop you from trying to stamp that shit out. But trying to gatekeep people who 'aren't the right kind of Ally' will earn you no friends, not even from the community you think you're helping
I didn't do so intentionally. Honestly I just find it easier to use they/them for the majority of people anyway, especially with the increase in anonymous identities since the rise of the internet.
I agree with everything you said right up until you pulled in Ayn Rand at the very end (yes I know she didn't invent the phrase but boy do I hate her with a burning passion). Still upvoted you for providing a reasonable discussion instead of just diving into personal attacks or other bad faith arguments like some others here on the Internet. Much appreciated
Thanks bro 🫂
To be fair, their total screen time was what? 10 minutes? Out of a 3 hour movie? And half of that was them being killed and the other half was playing a shade/ghost whose only purpose was to admonish Odysseus for letting them be killed? Sure, the character of Sinon had more significance to the story (or at least, to Odysseus specifically), but that part of their story was played by a literal 13 year old (Mason Cufari according to IMDb). Have I seen stronger roles from Elliot before? Oh for sure, but this role wasn't supposed to be the creme de la creme. For a purely supporting role, I for one thought they were perfectly suitable.
P.S. Sinon doesn't even appear in the original myth AT ALL, regardless of translation. He was borrowed from Virgil's The Aeneid which has its own set of goals, themes, and biases
In this heat? It's not going well
Those points aren't mutually exclusive tho...
Not necessarily? Idk man, language evolves, the word "nerd" doesn't have the same meaning/connotations as it did 40 years ago, nor the same as it will have 40 years from now. Either way, my brain is fried from work so I'm just gonna sit this one out. Feel free to use my comment as a Strawman if you must
Almost as unsettling as having 37 open tabs. Like, I've been there before, and it's never turned out well 😆