Given how much noise exit parties, or generally anti EU sentiments can cause, I’d also prefer a higher bar. Be welcomed if you join, but please be sure about it.

Alright, thanks! I think I understand where you’re coming from, and can relate. I’m an ex-Christian, although I guess for ex-Muslims this process is a whole other beast.

And yes, I know exactly what you mean about culture and critique - as an leftwing, anti-theist leaning atheist, I often have to cringe about my peers. It feels like false romanticizing, like we did with native americans, or other falsly understood cultures. So many things which I despise in fascism are also present in strict Christianity and strict Islam. Although luckily, very few people take their religion seriously here. So our religious nutjobs are a fringe minority and can mostly be ignored.

Refugees welcome, but I hate it when they try to establish religio-fascist areas here, spewing hate and all their nonsense, occasionally killing someone. I mean, if you want to live like that, go back. If you like our way, be welcome.

Yeah, a sensitive topic which can easily trigger people. I try not to care about the boxes they try to put me in. And I absolutely love the freedom of speech we have here. I don’t want that be ruined by migrants who think they speak for Allah, nor by leftists who think every minority shares their values. Like I was one of them. In my youth, with coloured hair and ragged clothes, I was regularly beaten up by (almost exclusively) migrants. Created quite some cognitive dissonance, some effort to justify their deeds, like worse socioeconomic status blabla. Truth is, many people are quite “conservative”, naturally more so in less liberal countries of origin. And still, I vote and speak for open borders. Our society must find better ways than building walls. This issue is challenging European core values, with at least two ways to erode the values; we can lose them by allowing hostile subcultures to grow, or we can lose them by closing us off to the outside.

Good lord, 6 years. Poor Aisha. I guess my brain was happy to forget that detail.

So thanks again for this exchange. Stay safe.

Other person.

I think there are stories in the Quran or the other important texts (Hadid?) about their prophet marrying a 9yo. Although I’ve witnessed controversy around her exact age amongst people in /r/DebateReligion. Like some said it wasn’t too bad, she was almost 14 or so.

Now your turn, what do you think? And why did you want them not to google?

Right, I should have clarified that. No, not my measure, I agree with you on that. It was just some measure, which seemed better than “do the opposite of what others say”. Because actions matter more than words, or so.

The comic you posted speaks of communism, not socialism, so I went with that term.

I mean, both could be brainwashed. Or neither. It’s funny, but rationally pretty moot.

Just because many people say the same thing does not mean it’s false. And just because you’re the only who disagrees does not mean you’re right.

Or maybe it’s rather a matter of taste and opinion.

Though I don’t see many communist paradises where people try to migrate in masses. While many non-communist countries exist which have such a pull. Ah, silly me, that’s probably due to all the propaganda only.

Haha, true! I had a similar thought:

“together strong” can be said by any group. Especially fascists, who very much value a sense of community and strength internally.

But really, it can apply to all kinds of governments (“Together for the king!”) and economies (like corporation, which is pretty much ‘together strong’ in capitalist speak).

So I think if one wants to make a point why their system is favorable over other systems, they should not emphasize the one point they all have in common, but highlight where and how it makes a difference.

I’ll just assume OP did that IRL. Memes are undercomplex.

Right. Also the speed of transition matters a lot.

Take any devastating effect that climate change might bring. Regions becoming uninhabitable, millions migrating, thousands of houses destroyed, crops failing, species going extinct.

For any of these effects, it helps a great deal if they can be delayed by years or hopefully decades. It gives everything more time to adapt. Like 10 million people migrating in 1 year puts a hell lot more stress on everybody involved (including the receiving countries) compared to 10 million migrating in 10 years.

Or your country might be blessed to deal with wildfires and floods one after the other, instead of both occuring simultaneously.

More time is worth more effort.

There are many, many different ways in which the economy could be shrunk. Many have the downside which you mention; making life miserable. But also many, other ways avoid this problem. A few examples how this could look like:

• reduce consumption of the super rich
• reduce production of trash products like plastic toys or single use vapes
• remove laws which enforce waste, such as minimum parking spots
• in urban design: prioritize mass transit, biking and walking over motorized individual transportation

When discussing these things, we should never forget that too little, too late action will certainly lead to what you wanted to avoid; making life miserable for poor people.

In contrast to a monarchy, where people cannot choose their leader, in capitalism people can choose from which company they buy, or even create their own.

As another person already pointed out, these are obviously two different categories.

The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don’t because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).

The point can be summed up as a question: Why don’t people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don’t they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?

These non-capitalist things exist, it’s certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.

So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don’t see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?

That’s a self fulfilling prophecy, isn’t it? The effect you describe would not be there if it wasn’t for comments like this. Or at the very least, these comments make the effect bigger.

Because religion evolved to thrive in us.

It’s like a parasite, and our mind is the host. It competes with other mind-parasites like other religions, or even scientific ideas. They compete for explanatory niches, for feeling relevant and important, and maybe most of all for attention.

Religions evolved traits which support their survival. Because all the other variants which didn’t have these beneficial traits went extinct.

Like religions who have the idea of being super-important, and that it’s necessary to spread your belief to others, are ‘somehow’ more spread out than religions who don’t convey that need.

This thread is a nice collection of traits and techniques which religions have collected to support their survival.

This perspective is based on what Dawkins called memetics. It’s funny that this idea is reciprocally just another mind-parasite, which attempted to replicate in this comment.

Right?

“I would have helped avoiding the apocalypse! But then some random guys sprayed paint on some things!”

Activists (try to) do that as well. But it’s much harder to get close to a rich person or their property, than it is to do something in public spaces. They, too, have to see what they can do with their limited resources.

Next, the media coverage is very unequal, as well as reader’s interest. You are much more likely to click on an article covering a potentially outrageous action, than you are to read about something which does not bother anyone. Although you can rest assured, these things are tried and done frequently.

So naturally, to the uninvolved reader, it may seem as if activists don’t do anything but stupid stunts. And naturally, each outsider seems to think they have a much better grasp of strategy and what actions might make sense than the people who are actually involved in these things.

Of course, a particular action can still be silly. I just want to draw attention to biases at play, in general.

And if you really have a much better idea how to do something about the climate crisis, then go ahead and shine as an example. Not only would you author an actually impactful action (which in itself should be reason enough), you could also show all these rookie activists how to get things done. If your example is convincing, you should see less media coverage about inferior actions.

What do you mean? Of course they do. It’s not a contradiction, because they are adversaries.

Japan’s coal imports are overwhelmingly local – AUS and Indonesia.

That’s roughly as local as France or GB to US east cost, similar distance and similar other differences. IMHO both connections aren’t even regional anymore. But yeah, it’s fairly short what coal import routes concerns.

This meme is so wrong it is deliberate misinformation. The Guardian made an article which is probably this meme’s source. It even linked to the original source, the Carbon Majors Report. But blatantly misquoted the CMR. For example, CMR says something like “100 fossil fuel producers responsible for 71% of industrial GHG emissions”, but The Guardian (and meme posters) omit the italic bits.

What do they mean with producers? Not companies like Apple or Heinz, but simply organizations which produce fossil fuels. Duh. Shell, BP, but also entities like China’s coal sector (which they count as one producer, although it consists of many entities). CMR also states 3rd type emissions are included. Which means emissions caused by “using” their “products”, e.g. you burning gasoline in your car.

So yes, the downvoted guy saying “Consumer emissions and corporate emissions are the same emissions” is pretty spot on in this case, albeit most likely by accident. Rejected not for being wrong, but for not fitting into a narrative, which I call the wrong reasons. Please check your sources before posting. We live in a post-factual world where only narratives count and truth is just another feeling, because of “journalism” and reposts like this. Which is the infuriating part in this particular case. I guess you want to spread awareness about the climate crisis, which is good, but you cannot do so by propagandizing science and spreading lies.

All that from the top of my head. Both the ominous TG article and the fairly short report are easy to find. In just a couple of minutes you can check and confirm how criminally misquoted it was.

In Germany, whenever the discussion about wether to deliver a specific weapon system or not extends to a “new” weapon system, this usually is an argument against. Hurr durr, it could be used to poke too deep into Russian-held territory, or beware, even strike native Russian soil. Russia might not like that and pull Germany into the war or throw a nuke or whatnot.

The day this country’s tensions between conservatism and liberalism die is the day the USA ceases to exist. That tension is at the core of our republic, literally since its founding, and it’s what makes us great, unlike any other nation on Earth.

That sounds as if this tension was somehow unique to the united states. It’s not, it’s everywhere. Even worse, the US have less of a political spectrum than most other nations, just shy of dictatorships.

An (intuitively) working search would be a great step ahead. It should find and show things if they exist, and only show no results if they do not. That a plethora of external tools exist to meet these basic needs shows both how much this is needed, and how much it is broken.

I also feel I have more luck finding communities if searching for ‘all’, instead of ‘communities’. Don’t make me add cryptic chars to my search to make it work. Do that for me in the background if necessary.

It’s been long since I’ve been using it, but iirc, it’s impossible or painful to search for a specific community in your subscribed list.