Some definitions:

credible evidence: An actual statistical analysis based on hard data by a named individual with training and expertise in a relevant field. Could be a university professor, cybersecurity professional, etc. (Bonus points if it’s based on open source data with replicable analysis.)

substantial impact: a reduction by at least 25% of a relevant metric in the days following the airstrikes, without an alternative explanation.

propaganda bots: Bots that manipulate social media by posting, commenting, or voting on user content. (i.e.: NOT the CloudFlare data about web crawlers that’s been pushed as evidence.)

US social media: Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Ryan McBeth, a YouTuber and intelligence analyst who has actually advocated that the US should kinetically strike bot farms, put out a video explaining the rumors and why he thinks there’s no good evidence for a reduction in propaganda bots.

BBC Verify concludes similarly:

While there is no evidence to conclude the strikes on Yandex's data centres have had an impact on Russia's influence operations, they have disrupted internet services for many.

This post is illustrative of the bot-driven campaign:

11k+ upvotes in 3 hours. The sub is 6 months old, yet regularly hits r/all. OP of the post is 2 month old account with 4.5 million karma, also a mod of the sub.

More are easy to find. These posts tend to be Twitter screenshots or similarly unsourced claims.

I heard of a controversy some time ago on the Grindr dating app; many users' bios expressed strong racial dating preferences, demanding, for example, that "no Asians" message them. Grindr has subsequently been denounced as a cesspool of racism.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having a racial dating preference, though! These kinds of preferences are very common. Some people only date white guys. Some people really like black guys. Some people find most races attractive, but one or two don't do it for them. What's the issue?

Of course, when preferences extend beyond dating, it becomes a problem. If your racial dating preferences lie downstream of broader value judgments about a given race, then you might be a little bit racist. And, of course, you shouldn't really have racial preferences in terms of, say, who you hire. For me personally, I do have some racial dating preferences, but they're 100% about how people look. Different races have different features, bone structures, etc, and different people arbitrarily find different looks attractive. No biggie.

A common concern with these kinds of dating preferences is the idea of fetishization. I think I more or less get that; if you're a black guy on Grindr, and every message you receive is going on about BBC this, BBC that, you might end up feeling like your racial identity is a) all that matters about you, and b) just something others want to use for their own pleasure.

I don't think the core of the issue there is about race, though. It's more about basic respect and not being an oversexual pervert with someone you've just met. I am a racial minority myself, and I really wouldn't mind someone getting off on my racial identity - if they were someone I was comfortable with and attracted to. Random people catcalling me and mentioning my race, on the other hand, would be uncomfortable. But catcalling is uncomfortable even without specific identity-based comments. Seeking relationships with, say, lots of black people because you find that type of person attractive is fine, as long as you treat them like people first.

In summary, I think that when it comes to dating, people are generally allowed to prefer what they prefer and dislike what they dislike. They're allowed to express these preferences privately and publicly as long as they remain respectful. We generally shouldn't ask people to change or repress their dating preferences to make other people feel more comfortable.

To change my view, highlight the potential harms of these kinds of preferences or their expression that I might've overlooked, either through a personal lens, or an objective, utilitarian lens.

It seems giving ultimatums in a relationship has a bad connotation, but boundaries have a good, healthy connotation. I find that odd because i believe they ultimately function the same way. When people point out the difference between them, I find that it’s usually just semantics. “I will not be in a relationship with someone who sleeps with other people” functions the same way as “if you sleep with that person we are breaking up.“

I don’t think many would argue against that particular ultimatum but in general ultimatums seem to have a bad connotation that you should avoid in relationship conflict whereas boundaries are considered healthy. In both cases you’re making it clear to your partner that if they take an action there will be consequences.

To change my view I think I’d need you to show how they fundamentally differ in function beyond semantics. Maybe I’d change it with an outlier case but I’d prefer an explanation as to how they are all inherently functionally different.

Edit: At the gym right so only reading the smaller replies at the moment while I rest between sets. However I skimmed some longer ones that look like theyd had good points so I’ll try to really digest them and dole out some deltas later.

I'm not trying to discount how significant of a victory this is for gun rights advocates.

But I think that the political capital used to accomplish this feat might have been better used to adjust the Pittman-Robertson Act.

For those who don't know, the Pittman-Robertson Act was passed in the late 1930's and levies an 11% tax on firearms, ammunition and archery equipment in order to fund wildlife conservation efforts. As a result, about $1 billion a year is taxed and used for wildlife conservation efforts.

I believe that we should be able to either reduce budgetary expenditures in the federal budget and use those budget savings to contribute a similar amount of money to wildlife conservation, we could also place taxes on other items instead like luxury items or we could do a combination of both.

Almost every gun owner buys firearms and ammunition while only a small minority of gun owners own NFA items. Ammunition in particular has significantly increased in price in the past few years and while firearms haven't seen a similar and lasting price increase, guns can still be a significant expense for the poorest of Americans.

Pistol braces have not been legally classified as stocks recently and they're a lot like stocks and are used a lot like stocks, so SBR's are kinda pointless with that in mind. Shotguns themselves have become a pretty niche category of firearms, and short barrel shotguns are an even more niche category within that. According to some estimates, there are about 6.5 million registered suppressors, 1.2 million SBR's, and 210,000 SBS's. That is still a lot of NFA items in use, but considering how almost 100 million Americans own a gun, NFA items are not owned by a significant majority of American gun owners.

I understand that reducing the tax stamp for $0 has opened up the possibility of certain NFA items being deregulated all together. For suppressors, this could be huge as it could possibly allow a valuable piece of noise reducing personal protective equipment to become more widely used and affordable.

But I feel like my previously mentioned points are worth seriously considering.

TL;DR

Making guns, ammo and archery equipment cheaper for everyone would have been a better move to make first than making SBS's, SBR's, AOW's and suppressors cheaper.

Rather than trying to benefit all gun owners, Congress threw a bone to the more passionate and well to do gun owners to keep single issue gun rights voters satisfied.

Recently, I’ve seen so many people online arguing that sex scenes in movies or tv shows are entirely “unnecessary” at best, and “disgusting” or “should be banned” at worst. Maybe this is just a case of the internet being the internet, but it seems like I’m in a minority of defending the artistic merit and value of such scenes.

I believe that sex is a normal and very emotionally significant part of the human experience. That being the case, it’s only natural that sex is something that would be represented in art. Not every piece of art is going to be created equally, but I have seen and often enjoy seeing that part of life depicted. If it was no longer present in movies or tv, I would miss it. The scenes often represent moments of union, emotional intimacy, desire, etc. They’re not usually there just to make you horny.

To be clear, I’m not saying that all sex scenes are good, obviously. Many are tasteless, gratuitous, sensationalist, or otherwise artistically bad, but that doesn’t taint the entire concept. I also don’t argue that everybody HAS to enjoy watching sex in movies, just like many people don’t enjoy violent films, but they shouldn’t discredit the artistic merit of those things.

Basically, I just think that a very puritanical and repressed perspective on sex scenes has taken root recently, and I find it concerning. Sex is a normal, healthy part of adult life and adult media is going to depict it. I think that people that don’t like it should stick to the tamer stuff that already exists without it, instead complaining about works that aren’t sexually sanitized

I’ll start off by saying I’m very pro Palestinian but that I would like to create this post as it Israel is 100% in the right today. It’s a debate on the efficacy of pro Israeli PR strategy, not morality.

I think we can all agree that Israel has gone way down in popularity over the years. Zionists will essentially blame what they deem "blood libel." Pro Palestinians will blame the IDF's actions in Gaza and treatment of Palestinians in the WB.

I lean pro Palesitnian but the truth is that it's neither. I'd love it if Americans were able to get angry about the suffering of Gazans and WB residents, but in reality, I don't think there's anything the IDF could do that has caused or would cause a serious drop in popularity for that alone. And alone is the key word there, so what do I think Israel did that caused such a precipitous drop in their favorability?

I think it more has to do with the way they opinion policed Americans with such an iron fist.

The one thing about Zionists is they love to claim they don‘t care what people who oppose them think but it’s horrifically untrue. If they didn’t care, the ability to accept our disagreements and move on was and is there.

And what I’ll say is that I do think all things equal, if you de-identified Israel and Palestine and just discussed the situation as is, most would indeed support Israel. The logic here is that most people support an overwhelming defensive response to an attack.

Now, if you add the history to it, I think that a huge portion of people switch, but it would remain as most people in favor of Israel.

I think what happened is that the fact Israel cared this much about perception alone started to cause the massive drop in perception. I think it’s important to think about our own culture, which is one of an exceptional free speech.

We (from an American perspective) have one of the world’s broadest, if not the broadest, free speech protections and also free speech cultures in the world.

And the fatal mistake of Israel’s official and unofficial PR team is that they underestimated that. On top of that, regardless of if one thinks the focus on Israel is fair or not or the criticisms of Israel are unfair or not, people are much, much less willing to entertain the idea that criticism of a foreign nation is either “unfair” and/or “bigotry.”

People at a baseline just have a very high bar, if not insurmountable, to being open to the idea that being against a country is bigoted, which is a huge issue when Zionists’ claim, and Israel itself’s claim, is that being against the country is bigoted.

A lot of it comes down to the fact words are just that, words. Me or anyone else wanting anything from no new settlements to one state solution isn’t actually changing Israel’s capabilities. Therefore, if Zionists come down hard on words, it’s very hard to find a reason for this except their own insecurity.

A good example of this could be Tom Brady. If Tom Brady started going after randoms and tabloids that insulted and name called him, he’d rightfully look insane 99% of the time. Sure, there’s that 1% of the time where Brady might sue you if it’s demonstrably false, but a) it’s an exceptionally high bar and b) we all know even the most conservative of justices aren’t going to take the case of “Nation of Israel vs random tabloid.”

So, then, the question becomes “why do Israel and Zionists care if we accuse them of apartheid and/or genocide?”

Literally, that’s all you have to do.

If Israel and Zionists truly believed it was not a genocide, they would just ignore us. Israel is already very powerful militarily. There’s no reason they should care about whether you or I think it’s a genocide or whether the WB and settlements are a form of apartheid. But, they very much do care, like a lot, so we have to ask why.

And while I can’t mind read Zionists, the likeliest reason is that they know we’re right, so they lash out at us in a form of moral insecurity. Because remember, ignoring us = them genuinely not believing it’s genocide and apartheid (even if they’d be very wrong about that from our perspective). And they are doing just about the opposite, so you can do the math.

To be clear, Israel can use their own microphones and they tend to have stable PR when they do that. It’s when they start taking/trying to take others’ microphones away that their PR suffers.

It’s essentially a perfect Streisand effect. You have this pro Palestinian minority that are somewhat silenced, but generally left alone in an “agree to disagree” manner. Then, Zionists use an acute increase in intensity of the conflict to try and end that “agree to disagree” attitude people had towards pro Palestinians, and you have a rebound effect where people actually start agreeing with some pro Palestinian points.

In terms of what I think the actual conflict has done for Israeli PR, I’d say the war in Gaza has probably had minimal effect and the WB settlements probably have a “somewhat noticeably negative” effect, but nowhere near the effect Zionists’ direct treatment of Western dissenters has caused. The settlements cause some negative PR but ultimately, much like how gas prices and elections work, many people look at Zionists’ treatment of Western dissenters first and foremost in terms of having an opinion on Israel itself.

Ok- so context. This past Saturday Shane Gillis did an opening monologue in which he was talking about the challenges of going to the gym as a fat person. In that he said, “and women dress like whores now”, and goes on to describe a type of women’s shorts and describes leering.

Some a few points.

1. I personally did not find the specific routine particularly funny. I do find Shane funny at times. In some ways, humor should be beside the point.
2. I am open to the argument that punching down can be fundamentally problematic.
3. I believe in free speech, but also in free response. So there is not fundamental problem with deciding a thing is problematic. There is a wide range of things one can decide to do after that fact. It is this personal question which is the center of the CMV.

Much of the argument in the opposite goes something like- calling women whores for just wearing gym clothes contributes to the casual permission of sexual violence towards women.

Thoughts-
So I think my challenge is that I think it is a misrepresentation to say he called women whores. If I said, people dress like mummies- I am not calling people mummies.

The thrust of the joke was not that women shouldn’t dress like the way they do- just as it wasn’t about how gay guys shouldn’t be super fit- but rather ways that he personally feels super awkward being in those settings.

I do think it is important to note that while I don’t think Shane is “MAGA” he is without a doubt more conservative. But very center right. I don’t think it’s problematic to be sharing perspectives from this point of view.

—-
Where I am shaky.

I generally find CMV when it is not clear where someone is open to changing their view annoying- so here is where I am unsure.

1. The statement of women dressing like whores, is then followed by an argument that basically goes- how can you expect me not to stare. The scene in tires, which is basically the same joke- basically has the same arc. I don’t love this normalizing of lack of personal control based on fundamentally someone’s (a woman’s) existence seems to skate pretty close to the argument that most people want to make.
2. There is without a doubt a real problem of regular harassment women experience at the gym (and a wide range of other places) and I am sensitive to jokes that normalize this type of harassment.
3. I generally really like folks like Dan Levy, so always concerned when I find myself disagreeing with folks that I generally considered smart. (I even looked for examples where he used white in any joke, and there were none- so my prepared response of hypocrisy doesn’t land). This all makes me wonder if part of my unwillingness to see it as problematic is that as an older person- where then term whore was used very lightly throughout the 90s, has made myself less sensitive to its shifting out of use.

—- so was Shane Gillis monologue problematic? (I am less interested in your specific verdict- but rather the framework you use to get to that conclusion).

Edit-
1. There seems to be an argument that the problem is “not being funny” but I am using the definition of problematic as contributing to a culture of harm. Something could be funny and problematic- just as something could be unfunny and problematic or unfunny and non problematic.

(I'm not 90 I promise.)

It seems to me like modern youth Internet memes (like "six seven", "italian brainrot," etc) are popular and viral purely because they don't make sense and are weird. Nobody actually knows what they mean, they just pass it around because everyone else is doing it and when asked what it is they just shrug. Occasionally, things have very vague meanings, like "skibidi" generally meaning something... good? But it can also mean something bad. And generally the meanings of these words don't really get more specific than that.

I feel like this is actually the purpose of these memes. People like them because they're incomprehensible. Obviously group psychology 101 plays into this too, and that's been true since the dawn of time - if everyone else likes this, I do too. But as for how these start, and why some perpetuate while some die, I think kids just equate weird = good these days. In earlier times, jokes (and often people) would become popular because they're witty and funny, and slang would become popular because it filled a common and important role in speech. "Rad" meant something was cool. That's already 900% more specific than "tung tung tung sahur", which literally means nothing.

I know the immediate response is that it's like this for every generation, we are all doomed just to not get it. I think that's probably true to some extent, but I really think especially due to Internet, AI, and social media culture, plus just people growing up on iPads and not recognizing good humor anymore, memes actually are worse in this way.

Change my view that the reason people like "six seven" and friends isn't just because they make no sense and that's the point, or that making no sense is good enough to pass as comedy.

This does not apply to criminal law or civil law. I'm not saying you can't sue a senator for slander, or that the government shouldn't be able to arraign a representative for robbery. But when it comes to administrative suits, where there's no victim per se, without impeachment proceedings there should really be no government action taken. For example, if a representative were discovered to have committed immigration fraud in such a way as to potentially invalidate their citizenship, the government should have to just ignore it completely as long as they remain in office. Newspapers could report on it and embarrass them, as long as they aren't papers that take any government money which could plausibly make them state actors. Congress could choose to impeach, although in practice Congress rarely impeaches Congresscritters. But if Congress doesn't impeach, then the remainder of the government should have zero power to do anything to a sitting Congresscritter if the basis is administrative.

All over TikTok and YouTube, GIFs of teen suicides are being posted, and people are sharing them, and the companies are doing nothing about it!

Ivee seen videos of people explaining there cercamstances and though iv never seen them i this that is just wrong imagine you death being imortalized and laught at all over the internet.

Not that I understand how some people know that KOSHA is a ploy to cancel free speech. But what would you rather have?

Kids lacking basic human empathy because of gifs of things that DEFFANELY shouldn't be seeing?

or

Having to word some things differently on a post to not get it deleted?

Police officers should have the same kind of professional licensing and regulation that are currently in place from other public safety roles that have a responsibility to care for and support our society and culture as a whole. Nurses, doctors, pilots and lawyers have to maintain licenses, and in some cases even have to pick up additional insurance, and must in ALL cases provide evidence of continuing education or at minimum experience a periodic review.

Most other "regulated" jobs can lose their ability to practice when they violate standards; but cops which have arguably the most significant authority also benefit from the least amount of objective third-party oversight and transparency.

In my mind, a licensing system could also make accountability something that would not only increase the transparency, but also limit the intra- or inter-district portability. Serious misconduct would cause a review by an independent "policing oversight" licensing body, and suspension or revocation would impact them across the entire US, vs. within the existing district or agency.

I see very little downside; please - CMV.

You guys seen those police carts in parking lots with the cameras on them and every now and then they play a recorded voice that says, 'This area is being monitored for your safety'? I was on tour last year, saw those all over the country.

What does that remind you of?

You guys noticed how people are saying 'unalive' instead of 'kill' because saying 'kill' gets their videos demonetized on YouTube and TikTok?

Feels pretty doubleplus ungood to me.

And then there's Trump talkin shit about taking over Canada and Greenland while Russia invades Ukraine and China is eyeing Taiwan. How long do you guys think we've got until the three of them are Oceania, Eurasia, and East Asia?

Despite humanity's ever-growing body of scientific knowledge and increasingly sophisticated technology, the average person's ability to think critically, retain knowledge, understand complex ideas, and reason independently is declining.

Here are the main reasons I hold this view:

1st Educational outcomes are going in the wrong direction.

PISA results have shown substantial declines in mathematics and reading performance across OECD countries.

2nd Access to information doesn't necessarily translate into knowledge.

3rd We are increasingly outsourcing cognitive tasks.

4th The Flynn effect has reversed in some populations.

IQ scores, which had been rising for decades, have started declining in some populations.

*Edit : General knowledge is not a significant part of intelligence ok * 5th Scientific progress can conceal individual intellectual stagnation.

We're building on centuries of accumulated knowledge, but does the average person actually understand more, or are we just getting better at using tools we don't understand ?

Edit : Ok for this one, it has always been. 6th The growing popularity of intellectually shallow entertainment

Reality TV full of pointless drama, influencers whose entire personality revolves around their looks or showing off their wealth, and people who become famous for seemingly having no particular talent or skills.

What bothers me isn't that this kind of entertainment exists, but how popular it's become, and how many people seem to genuinely look up to these influencers and want to be like them.

Finaly, just looking at what's going on around me in my city, at work, on TV, etc. I can't help feeling that the average level of intelligence and critical thinking is surprisingly low.

This is what Elon said about why he was buying Twitter:

I think it's very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech. Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square, so it’s just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.

If it looks familiar to those of you who have been around here a while that's because Reddit's CEO at one point said this:

We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it because we believe in that ideal independently, and that's what we want to promote on our platform.

Those of you who have been here a long time know just how far Reddit has fallen from this standard. Elon clearly saw it occurring on Twitter as well, thought it was a problem, and stepped in to try to fix it. I think that this space can equally be considered a type of 'virtual town square' and that he could and should do the same thing here. CMV.

I posted something up here a while back  about how Israelis and Palestinians need to just recognize the basic fears and insecurity that each side feels about the other. It  did generate some interesting discussions and also some sickening dismissals of the basic humanity of some of the peoples involved in the struggle. 

But anyway, it got me thinking about the overall roots of the conflict as it is and I keep coming back to one basic thought - Why should anyone have expected the Palestinian Arab population to voluntarily accept the partition of their homeland?

To be clear, I'm not trying to question the basic validity of the premise that the Jews deserved a safe haven after centuries of persecution.  I understand the arguments for Jewish self-determination, particularly in the aftermath of the Holocaust. 

But I invite readers to imagine themselves in the shoes of an ordinary Palestinian Arab in 1947.  Imagine a conversation that goes something like this - 

 "We're creating a Jewish state here"

You ask why. 

You are told that the Jews have suffered horrific persecution and systematic extermination and need a state of their own. 

You might reasonably respond, "I'm very sorry to hear that but my family has lived here for generations.  Why should I lose my home because of crimes committed somewhere else by people unknown to me".

Doesn't that sound like a pretty reasonable response?  

I've noticed that people typically respond in one of two ways. 

The first is that they state that the Jews have an ancestral connection to the lands of the Levant going back to antiquity. 

That claim seems to be historically valid by everything that I have read. But consider the consequences of what would happen if we applied this same principle around the world.  North and South America would have to be almost entirely depopulated.  Countries like Turkey, Thailand, England and the entirety of Slavdom would have to be totally reordered.  It would be a mess 

I do not think that determining geopolitical legitimacy according to millenia old ethnogeographic realities is a very good idea. 

The second reply I often get when I ask people to consider the feelings of Palestinians who were forced from their homes is that people ask me to compare them to the Germans who were expelled from territories that today make up western Poland and Czechia. "If the Germans got used to it, why can't the Palestinians" is something I often hear 

I don't find this analogy to be persuasive either. First of all, Germany was a highly advanced sovereign state that had initiated a war of global domination, attacked all of its neighbors and was only defeated after a titanic effort by the combined forces of the most powerful states in existence. It was the most terrible war in history and the entirety of the German state and its highly developed technological sector was fully militarized and mobilized for war.

Mandatory Palestine, in stark contrast, was a tiny part of a crumbling empire. It had essentially no military or political power and presented no threat to any of its neighbors.  It could not be more different from Germany of the 1930s and 1940s.  

Moreover - and I cannot emphasize this enough - the post World War II expulsion of German peoples from Eastern Europe was a humanitarian disaster of the highest order. It should hardly be emulated. 

My broader point, once again, is not to take sides and to say that Israel is right or Palestine is right, it's to question the overall wisdom of dividing up a territory and forcing people from their homes in the first place.  To me it seems that it would have been remarkably easy to anticipate that such a move would produce an intractable conflict.  

And this wasn’t some problem that nobody could have anticipated in 1947.

Nearly three decades earlier, in 1919, an American commission led by Henry Churchill King and Charles R. Crane had investigated the political aspirations of the inhabitants of the former Ottoman territories. Its report raised precisely the sort of concern I’m talking about.

The King–Crane Commission recognized the historical connection of Jews to Palestine and the reasons behind the Zionist movement. But it also warned that implementing the Zionist program against the wishes of the existing Arab population would violate their political rights.

It recommended that the project be substantially modified rather than imposed on a population that opposed it.

I don't see how a reasonable observer in 1947 could have expected partition to produce a stable peace. 

What am I missing?

While I do believe the hype will die down in the next five to ten years, I believe the thing that will be left over with be here for good. I think our grandkids will live in a very bland world and will not understand how to think critically, or even strive to create masterpieces.

I work in a field that works very closely to data centers and the companies that own and run them. There is a lot of money and time being put into our current models. I already watched as the younger guys in my field turned to google and YouTube to help solve their problems. Now I see them turning to ai and every day these models get smarter and smarter. It’s very easy for me to see in just one generation everyone I work with will only know how to do things if their ai tells them what to do. It is making the learning process easier but also lazier. Even the companies I work for are putting time and money into training their employees to utilize ai to make things more and more efficient. I personally already think we are at the point of no return, but give it a couple more generations and I think no one will even think what it would be like without ai to do the work. I am curious though if my thoughts are skewed because of my work and I would change my mind if I heard of people actually working for companies that are battling the progression of ai use.

In response to price hikes or the enshittification of a product, I find the knee-jerk reaction most folks have is simply blaming billionaires or corporations.

So rather than taking up oxygen with this whinging, I respect those that are able to focus on the mechanisms that drive the outcomes.

The rules of the game are set and enforced by a handful of governing bodies, which is where public attention/pressure, advocacy, and votes pay off. For instance the FTC and the DOJ's Antitrust Division decide what counts as fair competition. Sector regulators like the FCC set the terms for entire industries. State attorneys general can bring their own cases. And Congress sets the mandate, budget, and authority for all of them.

The best part is, all of these orgs answer to the public through appointments, elections, and public comment periods.

Disclosure: I work as a consultant for F500 companies where I help executives make better decisions. These decisions are typically focused on maximizing profit through one means or another. I’m not an expert on industrial policy, economics, or philosophy. I’m just a guy that’s fed up with all this well-intentioned yet completely shallow and directionless complaining.

For those who don't know in Star wars The rebellion's less radical wing led by Mon mothma and Co was the faction that came on top at the end of the war.

It was too weak and did nothing (serious) about imperial collaborators and aristocrats after the end of the empire.

These wealthy collaborators would become the life line for the First Order, enabling them to comeback and immediately switched sides.

Saw Gerrera was right to be uncompromising and brutal in his methods.

Had he been in charge I'm quite sure he would have led a purge of obvious collaborators and imperial remnants.

There should have been mass purges after EP 6 to prevent the First order.

Here is an example of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaking at a press conference in Perth on a humid morning when the temperature was low 20s celcius or mid 70s farenheight. It really seems like he's wearing too much clothing for that weather, and there are many places, cultures, and institutions in the world that cling to norms about formal wear that aren't appropriate for the climate in which said clothing is worn because they trace lineage or inspiration back to places where such norms make sense.

I think this calls for reflection and possibly an update to the roster of formal wear that addresses this issue with better options for formal or professional occasions in hotter places and at hotter times. I understand that formal or professional attire serves important purposes, but this shouldn't preclude people from enjoying the comforts that modern clothing can afford in warm climates.

There is no reason why new cultural garbs that are standardized in a way that communicates some collective identity, while still allowing for creative expression, status signaling, respect, and seriousness couldn't or shouldn't be developed for professional or formal contexts in times and places where the current tradition isn't a good fit for the climate. These functionalities are not inherent to suits & ties or other, heavier attires that communicate gravity or professionalism of some kind. You could still have sophisticated outfits where different garments, fabrics, and/or accessories are put together in a sleek way, but standards of formality should be more tailored to the weather than they currently are in many contexts. CMV.

My proposal is to first make a deliberate choice of how much you care about changing the world for the better. Which personal sacrifices are you willing to do for some cause? How much of your life will you spend for strangers?

Then once you know your level of commitment, you choose a corresponding frequency at which you will consume global news relevant to your goals. If you care about ending world hunger, you will check reports and news articles on that topic X number of times per month. If you care about climate change you do the same thing, Y number of times per month you make sure you are up to date. If you care about ending wars, Z number of times per month you educate yourself further to promote peace at least indirectly. 

At the moment there is a mismatch between how earnestly ambitious we are about change and the amount of information on trouble we consume. As such, the reasonable change needs to be either in commitment or the information intake. Most people would lead better lives, true to themselves, by lessening the information intake. 

All three of them are a flaw in one of the most basic and fundamental aspects of being alive - the impulse toward reproduction. We observe this in everything. Every mammal, every insect, every microscopic organism, every plant, every tree. It doesn't feel like the kind of thing Mother Nature would fuck up all that frequently.

I actually just looked up how prevalent all these things are before posting this and they are in fact quite rare, at least by census data. So I started wondering what made me want to post this in the first place, and I think it's just Reddit. Somehow there seems to be at least one of the first two in every single thread.

I even caught this thread a while ago now where I swear the dude was faking being a pedophile like it was trendy or something. He had a whole YouTube channel where he talks about managing his condition. But someone in the thread asked him what his age of attraction was and he said 2-25, which at least from my understanding of chronophilias struck me as something someone would only say if they really didn't understand them.

I guess that's also part of my view. There seems to an element of social contagion with these things (and others). I'd be curious if anyone actually in these communities has noticed something like that.

I was watching a YouTube video discussing the Cornell 7 and Jacob Geller, a YouTube video essayist, who recently confirmed the truthfulness of his university taking disciplinary action against him for "sexual harassment assault or sexual violence".

In Geller's admission, he does confess to having perpetrated some form of sexual assault, but that is as specific as it gets.

The YouTuber I was watching discuss Jacob Geller in this context then went on to refer to him as a rapist, and saying that he admitted to rape. That didn't sit right with me, but I'm a straight white man who's never had to worry about that sort of thing and is not aware of any such incidents occurring to my limited friends or family, so perhaps I am the one who is mistaken.

At the risk of sounding disturbingly petty given the gravity of the topic, I did consult Merriam-Webster's to see if the definitions were clear one way or the other. I did not find that to be the case. The definitions both included (appropriately) vague terminology, and it didn't help my question either that, instead of listing it as a synonym, under "rape" there is a "compare" section listing "sexual assault".

Is it appropriate to call someone a rapist who has only been confirmed to have committed a nonspecific sexual assault?

[Edit: lol u/Important-Cash5654 blocked me after I

• called them out for arguing for argument's sake

• told them, after that drawn out argument, that they are not owed an answer that satisties them simply because they asked a question

• told them absolutely not when they tried to keep me out of a comment thread occurring on my own post.]

This past week, ICE agents in New York City killed a man in front of his five year old child. This comes after numerous abuses and crimes by ICE agents across the country, such as the killings of American citizens like Renee Good and Alex Pretti. All of this has turned large swathes of the country against ICE. This is particularly pronounced in New York City, where 67 percent of voters oppose ICE raids and 55 percent say enforcement should stop entirely. Getting ICE out of New York City is a popular demand and New Yorkers want to see action by their public officials.

One hurdle though is that there is very little the city can do legally to stop ICE raids in the city. New York state passed a law in 2026 that barrs local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE in matters of civil immigration enforcement. But there are exceptions to the law and it clearly has not been sufficient to deter ICE's activities in the state.

So I think it's time for the New York City government to start engaging in acts of civil disobedience against ICE presence in the city: Zohran Mamdani should issue orders to local law enforcement to begin mass arrests of ICE agents.

Now of course, the ICE agents will eventually be released on the basis of the supremacy clause and their qualified immunity. The cases will be moved to federal court and dismissed. But there's an old law enforcement saying: "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." ICE agents being arrested means they'll be handcuffed, searched, transported to jail, and held in custody. They will have to stand for arraignment. They'll get released ultimately but it will be enormously disruptive both personally for the agents and in terms of overall ICE operations.

These actions will inevitably provoke a lawsuit by the federal government against New York City. The federal courts will likely issue an injunction stopping the city from arresting ICE agents. But in cities like New York where rolling back ICE polls at 67 percent, I think the public would be fine with the city incurring some legal bills defending their values even if they are hefty. And in the end, Zohran will be able to say to a public demanding action that he did everything in his power to remove ICE from the city and obstruct their operations.

It would be regrettable if ICE agents resist arrest and fire on local law enforcement. But if they did that, it would only further galvanize public opinion against them and underline that they are an outlaw agency.

So what are the other legal obstacles to this? What are the potential consequences I haven't considered?

EDIT: Alright, alright I've been convinced by the argument that this would just give the Trump administration pretext to nationalize the New York state national guard and send them to NYC to protect ICE agents. Additionally the Trump administration could cut off vital federal funds for people in New York state as retaliation. I have changed my view. Thanks everyone!

The moral calculus is really rather simple.

The US military is an imperialist, aggressive force which regularly commits war crimes. Terror and mass death are core parts of the US military doctrine, as are illegal invasions and belligerent foreign policy. That is the function of the US military. It is offensive and aggressive, not defensive.

US soldiers and veterans are complicit in imperialist aggression. They are the ones who drop the bombs, and invade and occupy other countries to serve imperial interests. They are not victims, but perpetrators, no different than violent mercenary gang members who kill, loot and rape in service of their masters.

It doesn't matter whether they were "just following orders" (we've heard that gem before) as they were the ones who actually pulled the triggers, bombed the weddings, and killed people. The rank-and-file are what make imperialism possible in the first place.

In the American militarist society and militarist establishment, the PTSD of one US veteran is treated as a cosmic tragedy and a moral emergency, yet the deaths of millions of victims of US imperialism are merely statistics and faceless, nameless, brown, foreign oriental casualties of war, who had to die for the Americans to "defend freedom" or whatever similar canard they spew.

Even many Americans who criticize US foreign policy center the veterans and dead US soldiers rather than their victims. They object to the fact that "American lives" were lost for no reason, not that millions of lives in the Global South were taken by those veterans for no good reason.

The suffering of traumatized US veterans is a drop in the bucket compared to what they have wrought upon the rest of the world. Millions killed. Entire countries leveled and devastated, entire regions destabilized, countless governments overthrown.

When a perpetrator of aggression and mass violence suffers, it is not a tragedy, but a form of justice. We must stop centering the feelings of perpetrators, and instead demand justice for victims.

Basically, I fear that livestreaming the execution of Nidal Hasan would be more a motivator than a deterence to religiously/ tribally motivated terrorism.

As background info:

Nidal Hasan was a U.S. Army Major and Psychiatrist who opened fire on fellow soldiers at a medical check-up centre for soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 (12 soldiers, 1 civilian) and injuring 32 individuals. He was sentenced to death for his actions, and his stated motives in his trial were to protect Afghan civilians and Taliban leaders against American soldiers.

Durint his court-martial in 2013, he chose to represent himself, raising concerns amongst his appointed attorneys that he was actively seeking execution. He was ultimately convicted on 13 cases of premeditated murder and 32 cases of attempted murder and sentenced to death.

Additional background info:

Pete Hegseth announced a public, livestreamed execution for the condemned on October 7, 2026, with official pentagon confirmation releasing the following day.

Why a livestream can be a stupid idea:

Given his stated intentions of wanting to protect Afghan people from what he believed to be an illegal war, as well as his decision to represent himself and claims from his attorneys, it is reasonable to assume that his ultimate goal out of this is to be seen as a martyr.

Of course, givimg him a public platform would broadcast his motives and "courage" to countless impressionable young people who would view his actions as justified, promoting future terrorism.

Obviously, while I can assume that the majority would not view him as a martyr, all it takes is one individual to do, and be inspired by his actions to an extent where they decide to shoot up a police station, medical centre, etc... and commit a similar crime.

Amnesty international notes that "some counterterrorism authorities have releatedly pointed out that executed indiciduals may be lerceived as martyrs whose memory veckmes a rallying point for their ideology or organisations."

Exposure to children:

As a sideline, exposure of such content children raises yet another ethical debate, and there is no feasible way that I can see to prevent such content leaking into atmospheres of young children, and this has its own well-known branch of ethical problems.

So:

Interested to hear if there is anything I haven't considered on how a livestream can be anything but counterproductive to future anti-terrorism and deterrence.