libera te tutemet ex machina, and shitpost~~

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: December 7th, 2023

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  • I think it’s fair to say that when people are facing an existential threat they find it hard to criticize that which protects them. People should just be anti-genocide because leaders cannot be trusted all the time. But what are the chances that the Muslim citizens in Arab countries would protest if a genocide happens to their perceived enemies? Sometimes the best defense people have against authoritarianism is empathy, don’t let something happen to someone else that you don’t want happening to you.

    Edit downvotes explain yourself? I am just being brigaded by extremists on every post.



  • nifty@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldWhich part of DEI do you hate?
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    2 days ago

    Either way the reason to attack DEI was always the same, to gain power without reguard to how many people get hurt along the way.

    I think one of the issues which comes up are mandates. If there are underemployed minorities in society, then we have a problem. If that happens, then DEI should be brought back. I agree that some people are racist, and that life creates situations which kill individual potential.

    That’s why it’s important to have these ideas be part of social discourse. I don’t agree with CRT (that legal and social systems help white people only), or that DEI addresses the core issues with bad luck creating uneven conditions for individuals. The core issue is that people of all races and cultures experience bad luck. Most people are not going to be rich enough to afford even an upper middle class lifestyle. So, if there is a policy which seems to favor only a certain type of people, it will only create resentment or jealousy, and divisions. Poor whites consistently vote republican because they don’t get the kind of help they need from democrats either. We need the Nordic model in the US.

    I personally think education is the best option we have to counter the effect of bad luck on people’s lives and their outcomes. So, the ire that people are putting towards USAID or DEI going away should be firmly focused at ensuring that the Dept of Education remains intact for serving the most people.

    Edit the danger, I think, is in thinking that just because someone is X they are moral or ethical. I think the inverse of that is that just because someone is not X, then they are immoral and unethical. The kind of reduction of personhood to arbitrary characteristics which forms the basis of predictive policing algorithms, so I can’t support that.



  • nifty@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldWhich part of DEI do you hate?
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    3 days ago

    This is my sad hill to die on, I guess, despite my personal feelings on why anti-discrimination across all aspects is important for society. But after reading some informed perspectives, I think I get where some of the DEI pushback is coming from.

    It’s not about diversity, equity or inclusion individually, but DEI as a concept, ie as an actionable form of some underlying ideology. It doesn’t matter if the practitioners of DEI may not subscribe to any underlying ideology, the fact is that DEI opponents are unconvinced about the allegiances of DEI practitioners in special contexts, like the military.

    I personally don’t care about having DEI in corporate or education contexts, but i think the concern there is that if the public thinks one way, then it will question why the military/govt doesn’t want to. So, I think I get why they removed DEI/CRT from corporate and education as well.

    Per my understanding, the pushback is coming jointly from the military, and the main point of contention was the CRT-derived idea of “inherent racism” or “whites as oppressors”. For example,

    CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people[9][12] at the expense of people of color,[13][14] and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as “neutral” plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order,[15] where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes.[16]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

    Here’s an article which says why DEI was necessarily started (the writer is an academic)

    DEI policies and practices were created to rectify the government-sanctioned discrimination that existed and systemic oppression that persists in the United States.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-the-cubicle/202411/what-we-get-wrong-about-the-dei-backlash-narrative

    You have to appreciate why some part of the American armed forces pushes back on these ideas when your CO may be white, and you a minority. There are practical considerations to having such ideas in the back of your mind when you’re supposed to act without question and as a unit.

    Here’s some context for reading https://starrs.us/dei-how-to-have-the-conversation/

    Here’s another perspective from a Stanford professor, https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/25/will-dei-end-america-or-america-end-dei/

    Edit to clarify, I am not saying that we shouldn’t have anti-discrimination policies across different aspects of being a person. I am saying this is why some people don’t like/want DEI or CRT (which are distinct and separate from the existing anti-discrimination policies). And yes, I know the military has issues regarding race and sex discrimination. But I think people can address those without DEI or CRT.



  • None of those words are the insults you think they are, but I think I should say something because I am sick of people being cowed by asshole assumptions behind words like these. I think many people are too firmly in ideological camps to understand what makes sense in different situations, and what may look like one thing may not necessarily be it. Regardless,

    Anti-immigration doesn’t mean you don’t want any immigrants or immigrants of a certain type only. Second, if you’re anti-illegal immigration doesn’t mean you’re anti-immigration. Third, all countries are free to set their immigration policies, why does anyone believe they have the right to be anywhere? I am not even anti-immigration, btw. That’s besides the point if I am making a devils advocate comment.

    There’s no such thing as imperialism in the modern world. The fact that some countries insist on blaming their shortcomings on imperialism is a distraction tactic so their citizens don’t turn on their failing or corrupt governments. I feel bad for the people of those countries.

    I simply hate that someone takes a historically failure idea like Marxism and creates a narrative around it which sets that ideology as morally or ethically superior. It’s just part of the narrative to make western country citizens hate their own countries so that they dismantle their democracies. Which is the sum total of what we’re seeing everywhere now.

    There are too many complexities to these issues so I understand why people choose to engage in hivemind like behavior online. I am not even that much pro-capitalism, and I am definitely not against diversity or inclusion



  • The errors you’re seeing are due to your biased assessment of the systems and processes, there are a lot of assumptions you’re baking into your own understanding and then blaming me for them. Like this,

    Even without any corruption whatsoever, this process will continue, it’s a consequence of markets in general. Those that outcompete absorb or kill off those who undercompete until few large syndicates remain.

    Monopolies are not an inherent consequence of free market economics, in fact that’s why we have anti-monopoly actions in many industries. That’s why regulatory concerns exist in the first place.

    Second, claiming that because corruption exists in all Modes of Production doesn’t mean it exists to equal degrees and scales in all Modes of Production. This is, again, more of a point of nihilism, by refusing to analyze the causes and mechanisms of corruption and just applying it in blanket terms, your analysis is not very useful for addressing it.

    That’s fine, but historically what we’ve observed is that centrally planned economies tend to lean autocratic. Or do you really believe that select groups could petition Stalins committees for anything that deviated from his vision of what society should be. Even with Trump trying to do away with birthright citizenship it can’t be undone constitutionally.

    Third, you never justify why a system based on public ownership and planning is harder to root out corruption, you just leave it as a hanging thesis. What democratic means are more effective when you have a handful of unaccountable individuals in charge of firms, instead of Socialist organization along democratic lines?

    Simply because of what I’ve observed in existing places which follow Marxist ideology. The average Chinese citizen does not have any power over what the state does. The same goes for the average Vietnamese citizen. Meanwhile even small business owners can provide input to their states in western democracies and effect regulations.

    As for your second point, I legitimately have no idea what you’re trying to get at. Shifting to public ownership and planning would dramatically increase the level of influence the average individual has over the economy and how it runs

    This is patently untrue based on anything that’s factually happened over the course of recent history. This tells me your perspective is either misguided or disingenuous.

    Capitalist countries are controlled by the wealthy few, there isn’t a genuine democracy in place.

    People in western democracies can effectively vote for different types of representatives, and the pov of those representatives have wide ranging consequences. In fact that’s exactly why western democracies are experiencing destabilization via nation state propaganda which makes their citizens hate their very countries and the systems they’re based on. This is very different from any scenario that has existed in any socialist or Marxist state, including USSR or China or Vietnam.

    The fact that people want to extol the virtues of Marxist ideas based on nothing but magical and wishful thinking is sad.










  • Capitalism “works” up to a point, in a sense. The issues with Capitalism don’t arise from “selfishness.” Rather, Capitalism necessarily monopolizes and centralizes over time, and competition lowers the rate of profit through automation and raises the barrier to entry.

    Those issues are related to corruption, as mentioned. Corruption exists in all forms of economic systems. The problem with a system which relies on central planning is that corruption is harder to root out or beat via democratic means.

    Further, Marxists don’t believe people will “work for the common good.” At almost all phases of Socialism and Communism, people will almost certainly be paid for their labor, be it through traditional currencies in the earlier stages of Socialism to Labour Vouchers, distributed centrally and destroyed upon first use, in the earlier stages of Communism. This is how all Socialist societies have functioned.

    I am saying that Marxists believe that people don’t want to own properties or the means of production in favor of central planning. Why shouldn’t they? Because they’re so altruistic and want to favor those who will never be able to achieve such means?

    The fact is that some people will have better resources to become capitalists, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to do away with capitalism. What makes sense then is to make it easier for those who cannot or do not want to become capitalists to have a life free from being abused or harmed.