[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 23 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

I'm just gonna focus entirely on the common misunderstanding of the use of violence against Nazis in WWII because that's such a common argument for punching nazis and it's really quite wrong on so many levels.

"But Nazis were stopped by violence in WWII." That's a meaningless statement without the missing last word. Violence stopped Nazis militarily, after they had already seized power in Germany and were invading other countries. Today we're not in a military battle with Nazis, we're in an ideological battle.

So why did the Nazis seize power in Germany? Because they weren't punched enough? Well the exact mechanism behind how the nazis seized power is a complex web of illegal political maneuvers, political violence, and yes, some degree of ideological success by the nazis. But a key part of that ideological success was the fear of political violence by their opponents - most notably the Reichstag fire - to justify the power that they were illegally taking. It was basically "desperate times require desperate measures". So in the ideological battle, the perceived* use of violence by Nazi opponents was actually a key part of their victory within Germany.

Meanwhile, over in the US, the contrast between the violence employed by the German American Bund (the US version of the Nazi party) and largely Jewish peaceful protesters ended up being a massive embarrassment to the Bund from which they never recovered. Again, ideologically, non-violence proved quite effective.

Point being, and this should be obvious - violence is a really bad option for succeeding in an ideological battle. Yes, in a military battle, it's the only rational option. But in an ideological battle, it's actually counterproductive.

*Obligatory caveat that whether the Reichstag fire was actually set by nazi opponents remains debated, but suffice to say the political atmosphere at the time made it plausible.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 79 points 14 hours ago

“I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently,” Roberts wrote to his Supreme Court peers, according to a private memo obtained by the Times.

That's all the Times is gonna give us? One sentence of a memo relating to one of the most questionable Supreme Court decisions of all time? The voters should know everything about how they got to this decision.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

“Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

This is the most infuriating thing they do. They assume that any developing story is actually the most extreme version that favors their side. Then they ignore all evidence to the contrary and fish for any evidence that they can claim as confirmation, even if it doesn't pass the laugh test. But they assert "It was confirmed!" with such confidence and shamelessness that it becomes easier for people to believe them, and eventually the media stops trying to debunk them.

Definitely not the first time this happened. If you wanna find other examples, look at anything where experts on the topic believe one thing but a majority of the American people believe the other. It's pretty much guaranteed that the thing the American people believe originated as GOP propaganda.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Where I am harleys aren't so much of an issue as extremely loud uber eats scooters. Everywhere should just ban gas mopeds. The downside is it'll come off as a tax on underpaid uber eats drivers, but if the same rules apply to everyone it should end up going to the Uber Corporation and the people who use it instead of the drivers. As it is basically all of us are subsidizing uber eats with our ears.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

Whenever I see these articles, I feel like it's part of OpenAI's marketing strategy to use the fear-based media to pump up the sense of how revolutionary their tech is. Kinda like how they marketed GPT-4o by openly tying it in to the movie Her, as if ChatGPT is gonna replace relationships. They're clearly very aware of what gets attention and going for that.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

How I imagine it went down.
"Don't do it!"
"But I can't go on anymore!"
"But I'm Bon Jovi. You can't kill just yourself in front of Bon Jovi, that's messed up."
"...Fine."

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

Just like the cognitive tests. No one asked him how he did on the cognitive tests, heck no one can find out how he actually did thanks to HIPAA. But he obvously has no understanding of that so he thinks he needs to get ahead of the story of how terribly he did on the cognitive tests.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

In that case people would be dismembered, and then drown.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

You have to remember that the voters are human beings, complete with areas of ignorance, prejudices, and logical fallibility. Trump certainly is aware of that and exploits it to the maximum extent.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

TNT used to be a non-stop Shawshank Redemption loop.

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

Come on folks. Do you think the actual KKK would have a sign saying: "Trump: Endorsed by the KKK!"

I mean Trump took an avowed white nationalist Laura Loomer to a 9/11 ceremony. We don't need to find evidence out there that Trump is racist, he's out there telling everybody himself.

89

This seems insane to me. I live in a city where maybe 50-60% of people have cars, and most don't drive them that much. Yet every grocery store I'm aware of with the sole exception of the expensive Whole Foods has a fuel rewards points program. Reasons this should be controversial enough to enable a low-cost alternative:

  1. Many people don't drive and therefore pay a little more for groceries because it includes a perk they don't use
  2. It seems like a very ardent pro-fossil fuel move that you'd think would cause some sort of negative attention from environment activists.
  3. The subsidy typically applies as an amount off per gallon, so you end up really subsidizing big vehicles with big gas tanks. Again, really makes some customers subsidize others and you'd think people (other than me) would be annoyed at this.

But yet, virtually every grocery store does this. Anyone know why? Does the fossil fuel industry somehow encourage this?

32
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by rsuri@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

I have a vague idea to create a wiki for politics-related data. Basically, I'm annoyed with how low-effort, entirely un-researched content dominates modern politics. I think a big part of the problem is that modern political figures use social media platforms that are hostile to context and citing sources.

So my idea for a solution is to create a wiki where original research is not just allowed but encouraged. For example, you could have an article that's a breakdown of the relative costs to society of private vs public transportation, with calculations and sources and tables and whatnot. It wouldn't exactly be an argument, but all the data you'd need to make one. And like wikipedia, anyone can edit it, allowing otherwise massive research tasks to be broken up.

The problem is - who creates a wiki nowadays? It feels like getting such a site and community up and running would be hopeless in a landscape dominated by social media. Will this be a pointless waste of time? Is there a more modern way to do this? All thoughts welcome.

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rsuri

joined 1 year ago