ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
No bio...
User ID: 626
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
How do we know he actually wanted to win, rather than make compelling drama?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
The Iranians know the Democrats actually stand by their word, so when we come back to power, we’ll negotiate a better deal ourselves
Even if people bought the argument, they'd also have to explain how two more years of being bombed would make them more likely to negotiate. It looks like co-owning the war either way.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
The blame is getting shoved off onto Trump and Netanyahu, who surely deserve it... I can't help but think that others were in favour and have since jumped ship though.
Subordinates are always in a tricky position when they disagree with their boss, because any administration, be it government, military, corporate, or anything else, should present a unified front. If things get bad enough, you can always resign, but that's the nuclear option.
If he chose to come to work in blackface, would I have to answer the question of whether he's black or white, and whether it is appropriate to consider biological factors correlated with that question?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
5hr ago
Because if they vote against it, they co-own the war, nullifying the gains from Trump's unpopular decision to start it. The Reps probably would vote against it either way.
That's assuming Trump won't just do it via an EO, and dare anyone to push back.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
6hr ago
If that's what it takes to stop this madness, then yes, this was a great victory, woo hoo, go you. Just please don't start any more of these deranged wars.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
6hr ago
Depends on the reasons for it. Sometimes a mother can't produce milk, so if it's either wet nursing or the baby starves, it seems fine. If it's because of some aristocratic lady's notions that breastfeeding is beneath her, someone should slap her around and tell her that maybe motherhood is beneath her (though the issue with that is she'd have your hands chopped off for it).
or at least it seems aesthetically displeasing on the same grounds as surrogacy.
Yeah, sounds about right, though it feels less severe to me, as it doesn't involve literally selling a child. From the child's perspective, it's pretty messed up, though.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
8hr ago
Two movies, one screen
Indeed. They were hyping up the rebellion leading up to the war. If it didn't happen after all these decapitation strikes, it's not going to happen now. It's hard to imagine the regime not gaining legitimacy from all this.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
15hr ago
One possible negative consequence of the Iran war that I haven't seen talked about much is that it might encourage both the American establishment and the American public to think too lightly of war with China.
I think this is what happened with Venezuela and Iran, but I don't think the results of the Iran war are all that encouraging to take on someone even bigger.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
15hr ago
Yeah, but how is that relevant to what we're discussing?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
16hr ago
It doesn't make sense to me. If people were leaving cities for small towns and villages, that should cause the price in cities to drop, or at least stabilize. Ditto, if they were leaving some country for another, but everywhere seems to be affected.
Since the mother has signed up to be paid for surrogacy, I am not particularly inclined to view the child as being torn away from the mother's possession. Possibly, I am not open enough to the infant's perspective
Yeah, there's that, but also, it's rather naive to think that it's all fine because the mother signed on the dotted line, before a major transformative experience. And that's without looking into the gory details, like how a lot of them do it out of desperation, how the contracts penalize them for backing out, etc.
but divorce, mothers dying, infant adoption, etc., seem to me like they are common enough that this is not a huge problem
All of these things are massive tragedies, and we don't go out of our way to deliberately create them. Divorce, given it's scale, is a huge problem.
If surrogacy exists at all, it seems like it has to be an option for gay males.
Correct. Surrogacy should not exist at all, it is a moral horror. I don't understand how the thought that this is about gay men, enters into people's heads.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20hr ago
...or because they don't want to be regime changed.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
21hr ago
There's no way there's this many people with remote high-paying jobs.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
23hr ago
Given the weakness of free speech laws in Europe, the EU (and member states) could have openly censored unapproved views on trans issues the way they openly censored complaints about Muslim immigration, but they chose not to.
A quote from the executive summary that I saved in my draft, but didn't get around to commenting on before posting:
Since the DSA came into force in 2023, the European Commission has pressured platforms to censor content ahead of national elections in Slovakia, the Netherlands, France, Moldova, Romania, and Ireland, in addition to the EU elections in June 2024.50 Nonpublic documents produced to the Committee pursuant to subpoena demonstrate how the European Commission regularly pressured platforms ahead of EU Member State national elections in order to disadvantage conservative or populist political parties.
(...)
The 2023 Slovak election is one key example. TikTok’s internal content moderation guides show that TikTok censored the following "hate speech" while facing European censorship pressure:
- "There are only two genders";
- "Children cannot be trans";
- "We need to stop the sexualization of young people/children";
- "I think that LGBTI ideology, gender ideology, transgender ideology are a big threat to Slovakia, just like corruption"; and
- "Targeted misgendering."
Other than that, you have national laws like the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz or Ley Trans.
If you want to paint the EU as more sane than the US on the trans issue, you'd have to point to the medical establishment. The legal establishment might as well have been directly transferred from the libbiest gender-studies departament in the US.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
23hr ago
I don't see what the aesthetic opposition could be here
Tearing away a child from it's mother's arms is not aesthetically displeasing to you?
unless it is to such a degree that gay males are not able to "aesthetically" have biological children at all.
They can do it the same way everyone else does.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
I'm getting a similar vibe off of recent discussions about the F-15E Weapons Officer's rescue.
I outright reject the possibility of anyone taking the other side of that debate. No, I don't care how many links and examples you have.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
That's substance, though, not just aesthetics.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Yeah, that's not an appropriate aesthetic for a man in a position of power.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
All this to say: I think I'm just going to be unapologetically ruled by my aesthetic sense from now on, and say that we can allow some grace.
Your terms are acceptable.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
US subpoenas tech companies for private messages of European officials enforcing the DSA: the Trump admin is criticing European governments for censoring speech, which is...true, and not just "hate speech" but sometimes just criticing politicians.
Oh, snap. I was sitting on an effortpost on the subject, but never got around to finishing it. Since you're bringing it up, I'll just dump the draft I had stored:
Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe and a shared core value with the United States across the democratic world.
Some of you might scoff at these words if you've been keeping tabs at what's going on in Europe. Some might scoff even harder upon realizing they come from a statement from the European Comission responding to Trump's travel sanctions against Commissioner Thierry Breton, who sent a letter to Elon Musk, threatening him with regulatory retaliation, ahead of his interview with Trump. But even if you were familiar with that situation, when you find out how deep this rabbit hole goes, it might turn out all that scoffing is nowhere near enough
Recently the House Judiciary Committee released a report on EU laws' impact on American political speech. They subpoena'd the major platforms for documentation on the measures they took to comply with EU regulations, and the results were quite illuminating. One of the responses to the Twitter Files story was that it's a nothingburger. Private companies came up with private terms for using their private platform, and the government was essentially just pushing the "report" button. We've had plenty of conversations about whether that is an accurate portrayal of the situation, but aside from that, it now looks like the core premise of that response is wrong. The platforms' terms of service weren't established on their own accord, but rather under pressure from the European Commission. From the report:
starting in 2015 and 2016, the European Commission began creating various forums in which European regulators could meet directly with technology platforms to discuss how and what content should be moderated. Though ostensibly meant to combat "misinformation" and "hate speech," nonpublic documents produced to the Committee show that for the last ten years, the European Commission has directly pressured platforms to censor lawful, political speech in the European Union and abroad.
The EU Internet Forum (EUIF), founded in 2015 by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG-Home), was among the first of these initiatives. By 2023, EUIF published a "handbook ... for use by tech companies when moderating" lawful, non-violative speech such as:
- "Populist rhetoric";
- "Anti-government/anti-EU" content;
- "Anti-elite" content;
- "Political satire";
- "Anti-migrants and Islamophobic content";
- "Anti-refugee/immigrant sentiment";
- "Anti-LGBTIQ . . . content"; and
- "Meme subculture."
Now, some might say that just because an official government body invited some companies to have a friendly conversation about moderating their platforms, doesn't mean any pressure is actually being put on them, but the problem with that theory is that the companies themselves weren't under that impression. The report contains examples of emails such as this one from Google:
...co-chairs set the agenda under (strong) impetus from the EU Commission; decision is taken by "consensus" -- but consensus can be heavily pressed by the EC, if they disagree where it's going.
or:
The EC is opening the GAI subgroup under the Code of Practice. I assume we want to join (we don't really have a choice), but do we also want to co-chair it?
or one from TikTok about adding rules against "marginalizing speech and behaviour", and various forms of "misinformation":
This update, which was advised by the legal team, is mainly related to compliance with the Digital Services Act
Now, maybe this is just a case of overzealous bureaucrats throwing their weight around to push their private agenda? Despite the letter of support for Breton after Trump's sanctions, the official line was that was acting without authorization, so maybe this is was also the case here? Well, maybe, but said bureaucrats really wanted to make it seem like this is all done with the blessing of the top brass. For example an email from an EC official representatives at Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Bytedance signed off with:
Given the urgency, I take the liberty to use this informal channel but I want to assure you that I am addressing you with the agreement of the Vice-President (who is cooperating on this with [redacted] and [redacted]) and the knowledge of the President.
Personally, I think this casts doubt on the claims about Breton as well.
The executive summary of the report isn't a long read, and has receipts for a few other dramas like the Romanian elections.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
3d ago
Imagine if Israel mined the Straight of Gibralter every time Hamas launched a terror attack. Would the French be like, "come on Hamas cut it out?" Come on man. That beggars belief.
They wouldn't do that, not because they're such good guys, but simply because Hamas will never be more than a nuisance to them. If you want to know what they'd do in a situation actually analogous to Iran's, google the "Samson Option".
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
3d ago
Retard was never quite ubiquitously PC-banned, but there was a lot of spikiness.
I'd say it was. Perhaps not will-get-you-fired-banned, but will-get-you-banned-from-fora-and/or-unfriended-banned for sure.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
4d ago
You don't think that Euros make similar witty remarks about each other's countries when talking about each other? It's just normal nationality-related bants.
No, it's not. These things happen without an American even being present, and if anyone voiced an opinion to the effect of "come on, it's not so bad", they'd get immediately shat on, let alone if there was an American present, and fired a few shots back.
None of this matters. Pro-MAGA Americans seems to clutch to anecdotes about smug Europeans being smug to sidestep the fact that Europe currently has very obvious reasons to be angry at America
How about: two things can be true at the same time?
I'm surprised that no one brings up the option "MAGA are Trump supporters by definition, so you're more likely to see the group itself shrink, than to see the percentage of positive responses drop".
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