Of course. That’s easy.

Only one person in those examples intended to kill someone, and then followed through with the plan. Murder is worse than unintentionally killing and hurting people through negligence.

It’s really easy to explain.

retributive violence against individual actors is not the same as dismantling oppressive systems

My problem is that I only understand one of those things. The other is meaningless hot air, spewed exclusively by intellectual elites who may or may not have any idea of what that is even supposed to mean.

work of creating resilient communities and networks of mutual aid to replace those heirarchies.

And that explanation doesn’t tell me anything either. Put up a guillotine. Put the man in. Let the blade fall. I understand that. Create a network of mutual aid to replace hierarchies? Never saw that happen. Never learned about that, or how that is supposed to work. Don’t know what that is supposed to mean, or how that is supposed to play out.

If you assume anyone knows about any of that, and if you assume that anyone can imagine anything concrete about that, you are out of touch. You are communicating ineffectively. At least to me. And probably to most other people as well.

Yes we do. Plenty of stuff is banned by federal law.

Do you get what I mean? If you do, why are you being so overly literal here?

Snuff films, for the same reason as CP/CSAM

And action movies are not. Neither are horror or slasher movies. Neither is porn. Even though each of them might (or might not) inspire and incentivize illegal deeds.

It is not a general principle we subscribe to. It is enforced very selectively, and only in areas that we find most shocking. Which is understandable, but neither reasonable, nor consistent. I don’t know about you, but I think criminal law should be based on principles which are reasonable and consistent.

One such principle may be: “Media which may inspire illegal action, should be illegal themselves”

But that’s not consistently enforced, but selectively, limited by criteria which seem dubious at best.

This is what I mean, when I say “This argument does not hold water”

These are all banned to stop demand.

And that’s the interesting question: Why only these things, and nothing else? There is plenty of stuff out there which may inspire people toward illegal action, from real world depictions of violence, to action movies.

No worries! I hope I was not too much of a dick in my response, and I totally understand why and how you would read things the way you did. I’ll just try to express myself more clearly in the future. You know, this communication thing? It’s a never ending struggle! :D

My greatest internet achievement: I came up with the name for that story!

Okay, not quite, I came up with calling it “The Dagobah Story”, but close enough! :D

And of course there are the trolls!

Even they are still properly trolly around here! How nostalgic! Maybe not even a bot.

I’m just pretty sure that people are either making it up or ascribing normal, terrestrial things that they don’t understand as fantastical things.

Yes.

As I said: If there were aliens, those fantastical things, are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And in most non US places. After all, aliens are a modern US legend, invented from Americans, for Americans.

I didn’t say that there were any aliens anywhere. Or that there were any other fantastical things anywhere.

That “almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today” is superstitious and wouldn’t know what aliens are

Didn’t we just establish that aliens are superstition? I think you are overestimating how many people share “aliens” as the most popular superstition which comes to mind first.

Most of the US shares that. A lot of other places probably don’t. Don’t underestimate how many strange stories about strange things in the night are out there :D

The statement is disgusting and not really defensable by itself

I hate it when this happens. Why do feelings always play into this discussion? “The statement is disgusting”, is not an argument, and should never be part of any discussion.

No matter how disgusted a statement might make you feel, if it has a good argument behind it, it should be regarded as true.

I agree that the argument doesn’t quite work. And that’s that.

“child porn isn’t abuse and should be legal”

I think that this is not true. It definitely is abuse. But I also think that the argument for why it is so, is not that trivial.

I mean, can you make it? Try it out!

Let’s say someone distributes CP. How does what happens here, the sending of 0s and 1s across a wire, constitute abuse?

If you think about it like that, it doesn’t.

Of course if you take into account a broader context, then this argument does break down. For the details you would probably need complex words and terms like “retraumatization” and “inability to consent”, and “right to one’s own image”, and know a bit about what those things are, and how they work.

I wouldn’t expect every 16 year old today to be able to get all of that straight. And I would not expect any 16 year old in the early 2000s, an age long, long before metoo, and any sensitivity toward sexual trauma, to be able to get that.

Thinking that isn’t going to lead to more actual children being exploited is extremely naive.

That particular argument doesn’t hold water. We don’t generally subscribe to this kind of argument.

The general principle behind the specific argument you bring up here is this: All expression which is likely to inspire someone toward illegal action should itself be illegal.

CP is likely to inspire some people toward child abuse. Child abuse is illegal. Thus the distribution of CP should be illegal.

We don’t do this anywhere else.

Descriptions of non consesnual violence are likely to inspire some people toward non consensual violence. Non consensual violence is illegal. Thus the distribution of all descriptions of non consensual violence should be illegal.

If we take this seriously, we have to ban action movies. And I am not even getting into the whole porn debate…

No, the only valid reason for banning the distribution of child porn which I can think of, lies in the rights of the victims. The victims were abused, and their image was used without their consent. Without them even possibly being able to give consent to any of that, or the distribution that follows.

So anyone who shares child porn, is guaranteed to share a piece of media which shows someone being subjected to a crime, while they couldn’t possibly give consent for that to be recorded, or shared publicly. Making it illegal to share someone being a victim of a crime, without them being able to consent to that being shared, is a reasoning which has far fewer problems than what you propose here.

You didn’t get the point I made.

And I just went: “Children of time trilogy? That one only got 2 books!”

Seems like at some point in 2022 it has grown to a trilogy. Nice! Thanks for pointing that out, I now know what I’ll read next :D

So… what were they mistaking the aliens for?

Ghosts. Spirits. Dragons. Or any other mythical creatures, or mythical phenomena of your choice.

If there were aliens, those are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And those are the descriptions I would expect in basically all the world, almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today.

until the market adapts on how to recuperate that money since it can expect every citizen to get that every month, I don’t trust a free market not to ruin that.

Simple: Make UBI is inflation adjusted. Problem solved.

Let’s examine that:

1. The cult of tradition: Apart from Maoists, Stalinists, and Leninists, (all of them very rare breeds nowadays) I see very little “traditionalist thinking” on the left. So, NO.

2. The rejection of modernism: Does the left see the Age of Reason as the beginning of depravity? No. Even the most ardent communists the pre modern times as riddled with the same problems as modernity. They tend to see modernity and the rise of the working class as part of the solution. NO.

3. Thinking is emasculation, and action without thinking is good: If anything, then the left has a tendency to be a bit too over intellectual. NO.

4. Disagreement is treason: I have never seen two people on the left agree with each other. NO.

5. Fear of difference: If there is anything the left embraces, it’s plurality. NO.

6. Appeal to social frustration: Lefty ideologies do not speak to a middle class which feels threatened from lower social groups. NO.

7. Obsession with a plot: Lefty ideologies tend to not buy into the whole “Jewish cabal” thinking. Though they tend to put “the billionaires” in their place recently. So this one gets a MAYBE.

8. The enemy is both strong and weak: Does the left see their enemy as scary and weak at the same time? Not really. The threat from the right tends to just be seen as scary and overwhelming. NO.

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy: Do lefties in general embrace war, struggle, and fight for survival, because fundamentally life is struggle? NO.

10. Contempt for the weak: NO.

11. Does the left embrace heroism? Quite the opposite. Lefty action is community action, where working together makes you strong. NO.

12. Distain for women, intolerance of non standard sexuality, and a love for weapons: Nope, the left is against all of that. NO.

13. Selective populism: That’s the first point where I would agree. The left sometimes does engage in populism. YES.

14. Does the left use elementary langauge in order to limit critical thinking and reasoning? Heck no. If anything, a lot of stuff from the left tends to be too complicated to be broadly accessible. NO.

So, to sum it up: There is one point among 14 which aligns. And one which somewhat aligns. While in 12 points current lefty thinking directly opposes UR fascism, as described here.

That’s why I think your opinion is very strange.

I think you can say whatever you want.

As long as you don’t engage in the behavior depicted in that comic, this comic doesn’t seem to be about you.

I think that’s just not the topic of this particular comic though.

The comic is not about someone “calling a person a Nazi for owning firearms”. It is about “calling a Nazi a Nazi”, and someone else ignoring some blatant and obvious facts in response.

Of course there is also the problem of people calling anyone they don’t like a Nazi. It’s a different problem. The comic doesn’t talk about that at all, and has nothing to do with it.

Why do you bring it up? Why do you think that’s related?

Not really. The right tends to go a little bit harder in that direction:

Are you not white? Be scared. Jew? Be scared. Muslim? Be scared. Gay? Be scared. Socialist? Be scared. Woman? Be scared.

The left is a lot better in that regard, as they tend to limit the “bash their heads in” option toward literal Nazis. It seems to me that the right doesn’t feel a need to limit themselves in any way here.

It’s always the most racist asshole who believe “reverse racism” is a thing

Okay. I believe that.

never willing to acknowledge how they actively victimise already marginalised people constantly

Yes? What have I done? Can you give me specific examples of my problematic actions which actively victimize already marginalized people constantly?

If you can not, then we might have a bit of a problem. After all, you don’t know what I did or did not do. You don’t know if I did that, or how I did that. To me that seems like ignorant stereotyping. It is something racists regularly engage in, and a big common part of what makes lots of different bigoted and prejudiced groups of people (not limited to just racists) into such a big problem.

So I would appreciate if you could stop to ignorantly stereotype me without knowing me. If you still choose do that… Well, actually, I don’t mind it that much. You are just a random internet person after all. But if you behave like that, you are sharing that behavior with racists, and lots of other types of bigots. If you think that is a good idea, feel free to carry on. But I thought I should let you know.

Of course! How could I miss it. The argument: “User numbers are an indicator of quality”, is not valid, unless in context of the fediverse. Because…

Wait, I don’t think me, being the dumb asshat I am, understand that: Why? Why do you think user numbers indicate that something “can’t be as bad as you make it out to be” in the fediverse, but not anywhere else?