• 2 Posts
  • 22 Comments
Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: September 24th, 2023

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  • I think what he meant was a response to your question of why don’t we turn him into fertilizer. Their insinuation that turning people into fertilizer would go against due process and the right to trial. The use of “silly” I believe was sarcasm. However to be fair you could be saying that the outcome of a fair trial and due process would be a punishment in the form of turning him into fertilizer. However I think we can make the assumption based on their comments that they are against capital punishment. Either way I think we can all agree that his actions have no place in our society and that he should meet with the full force of the law for his crimes.


  • I would say the following things would help:

    •	Rethink the way our cities are built and reduce the ratio of work to weekends so that people can find time and have ease in going to spaces where they can interact with others socially.
    
    •	Allow for the construction of third spaces, especially for adolescents. Seriously, as a teenager in the 2010s, the amount of surveillance and regulation by parents and schools was kinda insane. It pushes teenagers online, as it’s the one place where they tend to have an edge on their elders enough to break free from it. (And it also normalizes invasions of privacy by corporations.)
    
    •	Withhold judgment by mass public opinion for minor transgressions. We have all said things that make us cringe at ourselves down the line when we think of them, or even when reminded of the perhaps more innocent action of simply looking foolish. It is little wonder, then, that people, already socially withered from lack of experience, shy away from the very actions that might give them confidence when faced with the potential for public immortalization of these acts via the internet.
    
    •	Regulate platforms to reduce the existing profitability of addiction. It is no contest when the largest companies spend billions and employ thousands to keep their users under their thrall. The only recourse for the individual is to join in group action to wield the power of government for the public good.
    

    While by no means an exhaustive list, I feel as though if we follow the steps of RAWR, we can at least make an incremental improvement.


  • I understand your wish to bring attention to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. However, it does everyone a disservice to equate the Israeli Government with the victims of the Holocaust. They are not the same people, and it is disrespectful to the memory of the innocents who died both during the Second World War and today.

    We can be mature enough to name evil where we see it, and not fall prey to the tribalistic notion that one’s lineage is inextricably tied to one’s actions today. In the same way that it is wrong for children to take on the debt of their parents, it is also wrong to judge a child based on the lives of their parents. Each person, and by extension their generation, must stand solely upon the actions which they take.

    This is the only way for the conflict in Gaza to end; we should not pick sides based on our preconceptions. Instead, we should look at the information, acknowledge the impact of the fog of war on that information, and do our best to make informed decisions with whatever little power most of us wield in our day-to-day lives.










  • I agree that Israel needs to be held to a higher standard as a democracy(at least for now). However it’s a difficult question; when you have a neighbor that refuses to acknowledge your existence, that has walked away from the negotiation table numerous times, and that every few years attacks your country, and who used civilians as human shields; what is the solution? You can continue to the tit-for-tat in a never ending multi-generational affair or you can end things. It would be really nice if everyone could just get along. the majority of the Palestinians didn’t want this; and yet they are suffering for Hamas’ actions. The far right factions of the Israeli government are being opportunistic in the oppositions silence following the attack. I think the best we can hope for now is accountability, we need independent reporters there and some sort of UN intervention. It’s all so stupid I wish the world would come to its senses.


  • Maybe eventually when time marches on and we become the majority (I’m 23) we can make good positive social change. In some ways, while living through it is bad; the hardship and unfairness of the system is preventing the usual trend of people becoming more conservative as they age; so perhaps there is hope for things getting better in the future. We just have to keep trying; we can’t give in to cynicism.



  • Get involved in local politics then; while the table is invariably skewed towards the rich and powerful, local politics is often the spawning ground for candidates. The global perspective of catastrophe fuels the feeling of powerlessness and robs the more actionable problems in our community of the focus they should be getting. To clarify, you have every right to complain and I don’t mean to insinuate that you don’t if you aren’t involved; just offering a possible solution to the problem you mentioned.