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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3364 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 1, 2023

Happy New Year!

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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That's what certain parts of the media are portraying, but notice the point that each of these is usually couched against some 'valid' target of ire, so there's always an outgroup to blame for the problem.

And the positivity tends to come from the general corporate/commercial messaging around a topic which simply frames any and every possible situation in the lightest way possible.

Let me zero in on a couple:

You can't eat a steak without feeling very guilty and you better learn to eat mealworms and crickets instead

This is often couched as "guess what! You can make an easy impact against climate change JUST by eating bugs!" as a positive, progressive viewpoint.

Convincing people to kill themselves is a viable solution to the problem of rationing medical care (and maybe other resource problems too)

There's a recent development of, again, framing this whole things as a positive in the marketing!!! This is what I mean! Rather than viewing the end of a human life as a generally tragic, possibly grim affair that should be viewed as a negative (discounting the afterlife). look at that fucking commercial portraying it as a beautiful event!

When did we hit the point where euthanasia was couched as a 'beautiful' thing rather than the ugly (sometimes) necessity that we try to avoid?

And likewise, can you find any corporation outside of the news media that allows any level of honesty, critique, or possible offense of any particular group in their corporate messaging?

If the group offended is not "woke people", then yes, easily. E.g. I have seen corporation sponsor "family friendly drag queen shows" (and publicly brag about it) - I'm pretty sure it is offensive to many people. It's just not the people that the Right Thinking People would care about offending.

But you don't see them sponsoring a Family Friendly Drag Queen show and depicting opponents to such a show as bigots.

Basically, they refuse to acknowledge that there's any negative side to it, and don't aim criticisms at any group. It's not their intent to offend, and part of that is to make it as annoyingly positive as possible.

Oh yes they do. Maybe not with drag queen shows (I can't say as I haven't witnessed specific communications to that effect) but certainly with other things. Example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2021/03/31/georgia-election-law-delta-ceo-calls-new-voting-rules-unacceptable/4823216001/

I think it's pretty offensive for anyone who supported the law (2/3 of voters by some polls) but somehow Delta - and many other companies - do not care. They think they are too big to fail anyway, so offending somebody who does not hold the power (and these aren't consumers anymore in the American system, not for a long time - it's those who control government budgets and subsidies) is completely fine.

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