enbyecho

@enbyecho@lemmy.world

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enbyecho,

With no aspirations toward better than “okay”.

When you take the first step on, say, a hike, do you have no aspirations to take another and another?

Or would you say… well, this first step is too hard… I’m just gonna lie down and take a nap?

enbyecho,

You are laughably misinformed.

enbyecho,

Where is all this “incremental progress” you centerists always talk about? Is it in the room with us now?

Undoubtedly you have the privilege not to notice it.

enbyecho,

That’s what the party did with the public option and increasing the minimum wage.

So because you didn’t get everything you want you are just gonna stamp your feet, take you ball and go home?

enbyecho,

Go on. Tell me about this incremental progress.

I can be out and not fear for my life. I can even marry. My partner now only rarely gets “gook” or “chink” yelled at them.

99.8% of the time when this stuff comes out of folks it’s because they are white and heterosexual and usually male.

For people secure in their white, hetero-normative privilege it’s understandable that they only care about things that affect them… and there isn’t all that much that affects them directly. But the truth is this is a VERY different world here in the US than when I was growing up. It’s now a world that despite the noise from the MAGA crowd I can exist comfortably and securely as opposed to having to hide in a closet.

Whenever I have this discussion with folks who aren’t gay or trans or BIPOC, it never occurs to them that there is a difference. Universally it turns out that since they aren’t affected by these huge cultural shifts, they also don’t look at the changes that make life easier for other groups. The simple fact that federal workers now have a $15 minimum wage means that a number of my peers now are not starving working for public lands agencies. That a number of labor laws have been enacted (including recently the non-compete thing) that makes discrimination against protected groups doesn’t affect people like you because you are not typically discriminated against. In some cases the pandemic relief for you folks was just a nice bonus to spend on luxuries, not groceries. The grants for schools didn’t matter because if you have kids they go to nice schools already.

I’m not going to argue with you - it’s impossible. But please understand that your incredibly narrow view of the world is not shared by those who have experienced this seismic shift over the last 2-3 decades.

enbyecho,

Nice. I can’t even see your goal posts any more. You went from “there has been NO progress” to “well there has only been progress that matters to you”. Despite the fact that I literally pointed out instances where things have gotten better for many groups of people.

Bye now.

enbyecho, (edited )

What if the woman was 45 and the man was 21?

Edit: to not be cryptic, my hope was that you’d answer similarly… obviously. To me the issue is not the age difference in and of itself but how or if the relationship came to be because of the age difference and the issues of power and control that might imply regardless of the gender identity of the older person. Obviously, older men do typically have disproportionate power but not always.

And it was pointed out here that this guy did meet here when she was still in high school, so most likely very much a case of grooming.

But just in general I really take exception to the assumption that just because there is an age differential it’s a given that there is a power differential. Even though I agree broadly with what you say, these types of assumptions smack of morality police to me.

Edit2: Of course, down vote. But why?

enbyecho,

but everyone’s making up rules about what’s acceptable.

The hypocrisy for me is that folks want to dictate what is “morally acceptable” while objecting to other people’s wanting to dictate what is “morally acceptable”. In this case, and it all too common with Republicans generally, he did apparently groom her from a young age. But we can make a judgement based on that fact, not the fact of the age differential.

enbyecho,

Perhaps even a sternly-worded admonishment!

enbyecho,

Give me a fucking break. Hillary was not a shit candidate. She’s arguably the most qualified candidate in recent elections, probably more so than Obama. And I don’t say that as someone who agrees with most of her policies but as someone who respects her intelligence and experience. She would have made an excellent president.

Leaving aside our broken system, she lost because she is a woman and a lot of people can’t stand that.

enbyecho,

In many ways, it’s as bad for lgbtq+ people as it was in the 90s,

NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE. Absolutely stupid take.

enbyecho,

Who’s having a tantrum?

It’s a stupid take. Objectively stupid.

Have a nice day!

enbyecho,

American a died a long time ago.

This is such a stupidly lazy thing to say

enbyecho,

Or you know, maybe people staying home because they can’t support a genocide, the death of the nation or the comedy option of a dude who cheated on his wife so hard, while on heroin, as worms died in his brain of mercury poisoning…

I’m glad you have such a privileged life that you can afford to make such choices. Good for you! But many of us are not in that position and are really counting on not having an authoritarian regime hell bent on erasing us.

enbyecho,

incrementalism

I have some bad news for you. It’s called “reality”.

So while you stamp you petulantly stamp your feet waiting for that big sweeping and most importantly instantaneous change to which you feel you are entitled, whole categories of people face an existential threat. It’s not all about you.

I do think they will be worse under turnip but I also believe that if we elect him, we absolutely deserve what’s coming.

I take it you are oblivious to the contradiction here?

enbyecho,

My assumption is that you are white, middle class and cishet male. Because you can apparently afford to give up.

enbyecho,

my sincere apologies for what I am causing you.

Do you seriously not understand the implications of a Trump presidency for women, queer folk, transgender folk and minorities? The environment? Years of at least some progress on progressive policies? The minimum wage? Social Security? Democracy itself?

We don’t even have to speculate - they’ve literally told us what they are going to do.

enbyecho,

You are right. It’s my fault.

It is if you don’t get over yourself and vote for Biden.

enbyecho,

this same argument has been made in every election of my life. I agree, and I’m sorry this this stupid country has it out for all minorities but I no longer have faith that scribbling in a little circle every 4 years is the medicine we need.

Once again. I’m glad you have the luxury of having this attitude. Because clearly the progress we’ve made doesn’t in any way affect you. Congrats.

enbyecho,

But the examples you gave me are the opposite of progress

Your ignorance seems to know no bounds. But I hope you have a nice weekend.

enbyecho,

If Trump gets elected and people like me are hunted down as devients, nobody can get safe abortions and thousands of transgender kids are denied the care they need… oh, and we end up at war with China while Israel does whatever it wants and the Ukraine is wiped off the map… I’ll be sure to congratulate you on your “making a difference”.

enbyecho,

I have one more thing to say before I ignore you.

What galls me is not that you feel that voting makes no difference. I think that’s juvenile and so provably false but it’s a feeling I can at least empathize with. From a narrow uninformed perspective in a limited time frame, yeah, I suppose “progress” is so slow it may not appear to be happening.

No, what pisses me off is that you don’t listen to the people actually affected by this. This is so typically white male: ignoring any other input but your own because hey, problem? what problem? What solution? Doesn’t affect me!

Here you literally have at least one person who will be, unlike you, very much affected by another Republican administration and all the justices that get appointed as a result. This person is saying to you that this one simple thing you can do - which costs you nothing - will help them out. This person is saying that actually it matters to them and makes a difference to them, their family and their friends.

But you are so secure in your privilege that you choose to say “nope, you are wrong, I’m right… nothing I can do here”. Not even a “hmmm, maybe I should look into this more and ask others”.

That’s so fucking arrogant and selfish.

enbyecho,

No. It is not accurate to say his popularity with black voters is “surging”.

pewresearch.org/…/an-early-look-at-black-voters-v…

📄 rule (sh.itjust.works)

alt-textIt blows our hivemind that the United States doesn’t use the ISO 216 paper size standard (A4, A5 and the gang). Like, we consider ourselves worldly people and are aware of America’s little idiosyncrasies like mass incarceration, the widespread availability of assault weapons and not being able to transfer money via...

enbyecho,

Excuse me, I believe you meant to say:

215 ^57^/64mm x 279 ^38^/96 mm

enbyecho,

Wow, she’s a real loose cannon^1^.

^1^ I mean how could you not?

enbyecho,

These “I’m not gonna vote for Biden because my principles are too important” folks are really starting to piss me off.

Where were your principles last year? The year before? Where were they when Russia invaded Ukraine? What about the Rohingya? The Yazidi? How about here at home and what Republican power - in congress and across the courts? Where will they be if Trump wins and appoints another SCOTUS judge and packs the federal courts? When hundreds of transgender Americans are murdered? When women no longer have any autonomy over their bodies?

This isn’t about your principles. It’s not about you looking cool in a keffiyeh. This is about all of us on the left working together to reduce the most harm. You in your enormous privilege are not the main character here.

I mean seriously… get the fuck over yourselves you spoiled brats.

enbyecho,

Biden still has to earn votes and nothing Trump said is different from what Biden is doing. He’s just saying it out loud.

You have to be in a position to not be affected by Republican policies to think that. Really to be single-minded about one issue, no matter how valid in itself, while ignoring everything else that affects so many so badly.

You may think you get virtue points for this but what you are showing is just how incredibly privileged and selfish you are.

enbyecho,

Username checks out.

enbyecho,

Voting for the democrats isn’t saving lives though.

How do you prove or disprove this?

If the democrats won’t step in to stop them then we don’t have a reason to vote for them anymore

Do you not understand how our system of government works? Or do you just want some sort of left-leaning fascism? Admittedly, Bernie would make a great benevolent dictator… but that’s exactly the kind of thing that bites you in the ass eventually.

enbyecho,

The entire idea that this is some child’s game is the problem

It’s precisely that you can’t wrap your head around the fact that this is NOT a child’s game where you get to personally pick - for everyone else - the one issue that matters to you this week that is the problem.

enbyecho,

If nothing else you’ve demonstrated your complete ignorance of how our political system works in this country. Well done!

enbyecho,

The pure fucking irony of you saying that when everything I just suggested is based in existing law and precedent.

LOL. You are clearly ignorant of the practical implications of such things and more generally of how politics works in real terms.

Every action a president takes either gains or loses political capital. The president does not operate in a vacuum… indeed our entire system of government is designed to have checks and balances and specifically to keep the authority of a president confined.

I must say, you have such an incredibly simplistic view of this… it’s quite stunning. You literally sound like a MAGAt, begging for authoritarian control.

enbyecho,

Republicans enraged by Biden

There, FTFY

enbyecho,

Any plant or animal that has been domesticated has been genetically modified.

You aren’t exactly the first person to misunderstand this. But congrats I guess.

enbyecho,

It all depends what your definition of genetic modification is.

No it doesn’t.

It’s a completely disingenuous argument and a false equivalency. We know that we are referring to GMO vs selective breeding. These are completely different mechanisms and in the latter case we understand the consequences and implications because humans have been doing it for millennia. In the former case we have not been doing it very long at all and do not yet fully understand the consequences and implications. I’m not saying that makes it inherently wrong, but it is a vast area of unknown ramifications. And given human’s already long history of fucking with nature and finding out my money is on those ramifications being less than ideal.

enbyecho,

It is selecting genes through breeding or doing the same thing in a laboratory.

It is a completely different mechanism. The best way to simply describe this is perhaps to say that in selective breeding you are allowing random mutations to happen naturally - IOW allowing the plant to naturally “adapt” to it’s environment. This is crucially different in that you are not going in and saying “oh these genes are the ones we want let’s only bring those out” but rather “these are the characteristics I want, let’s select the organisms that display those”.

To put it another way: in selective breeding you are selecting for a collection of characteristics. A great example is saving seed from a crop you have grown. Those seeds will always do better in your specific environment than commercially purchased seeds of the exact same cultivar. Why? Because there are small random mutations across a number of genes that are better adapted to your specific environment to produce the characteristics you want. Those genes are often not actually understood nor is the effect of different combinations of genes. By working backward from exhibited characteristics you are working from known successful combinations.

enbyecho,

Greenpeace have genetic purity fanatics?

Were you trying to be funny or do you really think this is the motivation here? Did you even read the article?

enbyecho,

The right way to do it would be to outcross Golden Rice with local strains

That this might happen is literally one of the specific complaints of farmers.

enbyecho,

Golden rice could have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives by now.

Serious question. If hundreds of lives were at stake, why were other mechanisms… such as just giving kids vitamin A, not apparently employed? Regardless of the merits of the opposition to this rice, why not pursue this on multiple fronts?

enbyecho,

As the article points out, it’s not just a question of safety.

“Farmers who brought this case with us – along with local scientists – currently grow different varieties of rice, including high-value seeds they have worked with for generations and have control over. They’re rightly concerned that if their organic or heirloom varieties get mixed up with patented, genetically engineered rice, that could sabotage their certifications, reducing their market appeal and ultimately threatening their livelihoods.”

enbyecho,

It’s the same outcome and you’re not getting that.

I just explained how it’s not and you’re not getting that.

Here, educate yourself: differencebetween.net/…/difference-between-gmo-an…

enbyecho,

The article said they felt it could endanger their livelihood by crossing with cultivars they’d spent decades developing and which were uniquely valuable economically.

enbyecho,

It really doesn’t though. If you point is… um… what exactly? That somehow the end result is the same? LOL. Only if you squint real hard and pretend to misunderstand words.

“Plant domestication by the earliest farmers 10,000 years ago is an example of genetic modification.”

Technically, yes. That’s true. Through DIFFERENT mechanisms.

But what do you expect when it’s brought to you by Cargill, Bayer, Syngenta, Nutrien, BASF… among others.

enbyecho,

just wanted to argue and get pedantic for whatever reason

You are the pedantic one. Have a nice day.

enbyecho,

Thoughtful answer, thanks!

enbyecho,

That’s what you choose to end this seven hour conversation?

Yes. Because this did not qualify as a conversation.

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