Greg :)

That’s like saying “I’m racist”

Ok but this isn’t really the same thing. A home isn’t a tool you rent just to use when you need it. Everyone needs a shelter to live in.

You give two reasons it’s preferable to rent rather than own your home:

1. You have to store it.

That’s just ridiculous.

2. You have to maintain it.

You do realise that you’re still paying to maintain it, right? The landlord is just also taking extra. Even if the landlord were charging you only what was strictly necessary for maintenance (which they aren’t), they’d still have unnecessary leverage over you just for existing in a space.

Don’t try to make excuses for landlords. We all know they’re vermin. They’re not doing you any favours by forcing you to keep paying high prices to live.

(Edit: formatting)

Well obviously the most moral thing would be to live in it themselves or give it away to someone who actually wants to live in it. I accept that practically nobody is gonna be virtuous enough to just give away a free apartment to a homeless person, but selling it for a (at least somewhat) reasonable price is probably what I’d realistically do (assuming no close friend or family member wanted it).

Renting it out is still inherently exploiting the person living there.

Also consider that no “good person” simply owns a residential property that they don’t live in.

I know I’m not who you’re replying to and other people might disagree with parts of this, but can anyone seriously not agree that all landlords are scum?

testing whether the testee understands their nation, its values, and the democratic principles it is founded on

It seems like you only want people with certain “values” to be able to vote. What even are a nation’s “values” anyway? Most of the time I hear that it’s just vague nationalist propaganda about how our nation and our people are wonderful. I will admit that’s a bit of a specific nitpick though.

As for “the structure of government and the content of the constitution”, I honestly don’t think the details of how laws are passed or how many seats are in congress, etc, matter much when it comes to deciding which policies you support and which party you’ll vote for.

By their very nature, laws like this exclude people who are less educated and have less free time and/or motivation to study for your test. These are almost always going to be also the most disadvantaged and poorly treated people in society.

Basically everyone has little knowledge about the vast majority of things. People who have strong beliefs generally think they have good evidence for them (even if what they think is clearly untrue and their evidence is nonsensical).

I’ve heard of “appeal to authority” and such, but at the end of the day I think that it’s generally sensible to just believe the mainstream expert consensus on something until you’re given good evidence otherwise, especially if you’re dealing with hard science.

Of course it’s ideal to know more about a topic than basic things you were told and took as fact and this should be paired with some level of media literacy and critical thinking, though.

Sounds like what chuds think the world is already like

That’s a quite reasonable response, but I will say that no actual revolution is likely gonna not involve a lot of violence. And yeah… protests are almost always gonna come at the very least with the threat of violence (for a reason). Plus, figures who do something violent that many see as ultimately justified can create awareness that could lead to more pressure on elites.

I just don’t think it’s productive to condemn violence in general. I don’t think violence not done by the state is in itself bad. Obviously a lone wolf going after random people they think deserve it isn’t gonna directly enact real change, but going on about how peaceful you are seems counterproductive.

Mass mobilisation and vigilante justice aren’t mutually exclusive, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Pic unrelated

That sounds nice but I don’t think that’s exactly the case in practice. There are often people who the state defends at the expense of others, who will never realistically receive any kind of justice from the state. I think things are also generally much better when these people are scared.

I’m not trying to advocate for violence against anyone specific but sometimes I think it’s best when people stand up for themselves (and the people) to show that they’re willing to enact some kind of justice in a corrupt system. Thinking of vigilantes in general as immoral and barbaric while thinking “democracy” alone can help you just plays into the hands of those who wish to exploit you imo.

Pic unrelated

Provide security for whom?

I heckin’ love the state’s monopoly on violence!

Nobody cares bro. My farts smell better than yours

I don’t think many people are gonna have “hot takes” based on a vaguely titled article behind a paywall.

Also “scandals” to do with the Chinese military have little to do with someone saying that Taiwanese military badges don’t prove anything about the situation in China.

Agreed.

https://theonion.com/you-cant-even-watch-a-movie-anymore-without-seeing-some-theme-explored/

What do you even mean here?

Any decision about censorship is a compromise of some kind between open communication/access to information and the prevention of the spread of content that could be deemed harmful in some way or another.

Maybe I’m just being thick right now but I’m really not sure who are supposed to be the “children”. It seems it could just as easily be the CPC for being uncompromising in their censorship of the internet, fascist trolls who say they should have a right to use slurs and disinformation to incite violence, or liberals who are unwilling to accept that a hardline stance needs to be taken to censor the fascists.

I’m unsure if this is an enlightened centrist take, you saying the CPC (and similar) do what needs to be done or that we need our freedom and the commenter above is the child. Whatever you mean, your comment (at least to me) comes across a bit rude and unconstructive.

Ok your comment successfully ragebaited me so tbh I’m probably the child.

Edit: changed CCP to CPC because that is the technically correct term, even though for some reason most English language outlets use “CCP”

I know. I never said they were the same. I’m trying to say that this comes across like a zionist strawman.

Complaining about antisemitism right now is just cringe.

Jews have a right to exist. Israel doesn’t.

There are genuine concerns about people promoting “Israel” to benefit from the extermination of the Palestinian people, and that’s what this looks like a strawman of, to me.

And to be clear, I don’t think “the Jews” are behind this. It’s largely rich and powerful people from the US (and UK and other countries), who often consider themselves to be Christian.

I’m not trying to defend the crazy guy in the comic. I’m trying to say that we shouldn’t be pretending this guy is representative of anyone who matters.

Well sure… but this is a political comic that’s basically saying “these crazy people hate the Jews and blame them for everything”.

Obviously you can post whatever you want and there surely are crazy people like this, but to me this comes across as though it could be trying to discredit certain criticisms and seems in bad taste right now. It doesn’t really matter what you say you personally believe.

But if you find this funny then sure. I’m not trying to have your post removed or anything.

This is a bad post to make when Israel is currently committing a genocide and powerful people are clearly trying to distort the truth about it.

Of course “the Jews” aren’t behind the trees being fake or whatever, and antisemitism is bad… but this reeks of zionist pro-Israel strawman shit.

Delta accomplishes this pricing through a partnership with Fetcherr, a six-year-old Israeli company that also counts Azul, WestJet, Virgin Atlantic, and VivaAerobus as clients. And it has its sights set beyond flying. “Once we will be established in the airline industry, we will move to hospitality, car rentals, cruises, whatever,” cofounder Robby Nissan said at a travel conference in 2022.

So soon even more AI will decide you have to pay more, and that extra money will be going to Israel, no doubt helping to fund their genocide

“Hard truth realized as a CEO”